The Morton Crime Thriller Box Set
Sean Campbell
This box set includes:
Dead on Demand
The Patient Killer
The Evolution of a Serial Killer
This box set published in Great Britain by De Minimis 2019
© Sean Campbell 2012-2019
The moral rights of Sean Campbell to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover Art designed by MiblArt
All characters are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
1st Edition
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
The Morton Crime Thriller Box Set (DCI Morton, #1)
Chapter 1: Falling Apart
Chapter 2: Red Spot
Chapter 3: The Plan
Chapter 4: Working Girl
Chapter 5: Oh, Canada!
Chapter 6: Jogging is Murder
Chapter 7: Morton
Chapter 8: Where's Mummy?
Chapter 9: Not Here, Thank You!
Chapter 10: A Broken Man
Chapter 11: Confirmation
Chapter 12: Interrogation
Chapter 13: Too Far
Chapter 14: Unknown Territory
Chapter 15: Patsy
Chapter 16: Weak Links
Chapter 17: Data Trail
Chapter 18: Déjà Death
Chapter 19: Worry
Chapter 20: Hope
Chapter 21: Suffering
Chapter 22: Done and Dusted?
Chapter 23: Officer Down
Chapter 24: One of Ours
Chapter 25: Incognito
Chapter 26: The Barrier
Chapter 27: Rosenburg
Chapter 28: Flow
Chapter 29: Self-Defence
Chapter 30: No Luck
Chapter 31: Sunrise
Chapter 32: The Frenchman
Chapter 33: Paper Trail
Chapter 34: Hot Pursuit
Chapter 35: Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
Chapter 36: Pain
Chapter 37: Guns
Chapter 38: Keys to the Castle
Chapter 39: Honey Trap
Chapter 40: To Sea
Chapter 41: France
Chapter 42: Like Old Times
Chapter 43: Schengen
Chapter 44: Dishonourable
Chapter 45: Repatriation
Chapter 46: The Invisible Hand
Chapter 47: Snakes
Chapter 48: The Colonnade
Chapter 49: Panic
Chapter 50: Implications
Chapter 51: Marylebone
Chapter 52: Devastation
Chapter 53: Getting Ready
Chapter 54: Shotgun Reflexes
Chapter 55: Taped
Chapter 56: Darknet
Chapter 57: Right Place, Wrong Time
Chapter 58: Flight or Fight
Chapter 59: Lawyering Up
Chapter 60: First Blood
Prologue: Can’t Save Everyone
Chapter 1: Don’t Breathe a Word
Chapter 2: The Home of Primrose Kennard
Chapter 3: Identification
Chapter 4: Nuvem Media Associates
Chapter 5: In the Dark
Chapter 6: KO
Chapter 7: Scotch on the Rocks
Chapter 8: Fallout
Chapter 9: Winner, Winner
Chapter 10: Unworthy
Chapter 11: Another Body
Chapter 12: The Last House on the Left
Chapter 13: The Students Next Door
Chapter 14: The Phone
Chapter 15: Snap Decision
Chapter 16: Hatton Garden Deposit Co
Chapter 17: The Handover
Chapter 18: A Diversion
Chapter 19: Blind
Chapter 20: The Search
Chapter 21: Bloodied and Bruised
Chapter 22: Momentum
Chapter 23: Rock Bottom
Chapter 24: To Save a Life
Chapter 25: Apologies and Anger
Chapter 26: All That Glitters
Chapter 27: Handoff
Chapter 28: Questions to Answer
Chapter 29: Not Your Fault
Chapter 30: A Link to the Past
Chapter 31: Sum Greater Than the Parts
Chapter 32: A Closer Look
Chapter 33: Hiding in Plain Sight
Chapter 34: Exposure
Chapter 35: Only the Guilty
Chapter 36: Another One Bites the Dust
Chapter 37: Lonely
Chapter 38: An Autopsy – Sort Of
Chapter 39: Footprints
Chapter 40: Ephebophilia
Chapter 41: Blood Connections
Chapter 42: In-House Counsel
Chapter 43: Tête-à-Tête
Chapter 44: Heartless
Chapter 45: Sunday Roast
Chapter 46: Ring Ring
Chapter 47: Colleagues
Chapter 48: The Paperwork
Chapter 49: Sickbed
Chapter 50: Watford to London
Chapter 51: Papers
Chapter 52: An Early Start
Chapter 53: In Vino Veritas
Chapter 54: Following the Leader
Chapter 55: Out of Place
Chapter 56: Get Some
Chapter 57: Not Today, Thank you!
Chapter 58: Crafty
Chapter 59: Stage-Managed
Chapter 60: Finally
Chapter 61: Serials to Catch a Serial
Chapter 62: Bloody Hell
Chapter 63: Complications
Chapter 64: Excuses
Chapter 65: Risky Business
Chapter 66: Scars Don’t Fade
Chapter 67: More, More, More
Chapter 68: Annals of History
Chapter 69: When the Trust Is Gone
Chapter 70: Not Fit
Chapter 71: Backstab
Chapter 72: Loco or No
Chapter 73: Voices
Chapter 74: Balancing the Books
Chapter 75: And the Whole World Goes Blind
Chapter 1: Stupidity
Chapter 2: Ways to Kill
Chapter 3: Shot
Chapter 4: No Backup
Chapter 5: One of Us
Chapter 6: Evolution
Chapter 7: The Usual Suspects
Chapter 8: Too Perfect
Chapter 9: The Union Rep
Chapter 10: Coming Clean
Chapter 11: Down Low
Chapter 12: The Meet
Chapter 13: Brick Wall
Chapter 14: Close Protection
Chapter 15: Domestic Bliss
Chapter 16: The Past, the Present and the Future
Chapter 17: Left Meets Right
Chapter 18: The Call
Chapter 19: The Leap
Chapter 20: The Mother
Chapter 21: Fall, Jump, Push
Chapter 22: Scopolamine
Chapter 23: Coincidences
Chapter 24: The Good Samaritan
Chapter 25: He’s Back
Chapter 26: Connections
Chapter 27: Loose Ends
Chapter 28: Learning by Doing
Chapter 29: El-Mirza
Chapter 30: Danny
Chapter 31: Babbage
Chapter 32: Pincent
Chapter 33: Rudd
Chapter 34: Villiers
Chapter 35: O’Shaughnessy
Chapter 36: Sully
Chapter 37: Analysis
Chapter 38: Doorstepped
Chapter 39: Divide and Conquer
Chapter 41: Sex Sells
Chapter 42: One Down, Seven to Go
Chapter 43: Race
Chapter 44: You Did What?
Chapter 45: Two Days to Go
Chapter 46: The Trap
Chapter 47: Desperate Times
Chapter 48: The Arrest
Chapter 49: Viva Voce
Chapter 50: The Taunt
Chapter 51: Counter Terrorism
Chapter 52: Puzzling
Chapter 53: On Location
Chapter 54: Unexpected
Chapter 55: Out of Reach
Chapter 56: Instinct
Chapter 57: Evaluation
Dead on Demand
Chapter 1: Falling Apart
Edwin cursed. The lawyers were at it again.
Virtually every week since he had become the editor at The Impartial newspaper, Edwin had been served with ominous-looking legal forms delivered in innocuous manila envelopes. The HM Courts and Tribunal Service logo visible through the plastic window was the giveaway which set his heart racing. This time was no exception. As Edwin fumbled with the envelope his pulse quickened, and his hands began to tremble.
Although stressful, such lawsuits were the responsibility of the newspaper's in-house legal team, which bore responsibility for dealing with lawsuits against The Impartial. Most claims were settled quietly.
It usually came down to money. Sensational stories sold newspapers, and profit demanded skirting the line between accuracy and attention-grabbing half-truths. As long as the profit from selling extra newspapers was worth more than paying off the occasional complainant, The Impartial would continue to skirt the law.
But today was different. The lawsuit wasn't addressed to The Impartial, but to Edwin Murphy. This time, it was personal.
Edwin's hands shook as the papers fell to the desk, and his eyes burned as he skimmed the document. Once he realised why he had been served, Edwin didn't hesitate. He hit the intercom buzzer, leant in towards the fuzzy microphone and said: 'Betty, cancel my morning appointments.'
With a sigh, he switched off his laptop and mobile phone, and then reached for the bottle of brandy which he kept hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk.
He should have seen it coming. His marriage had not been a happy one for a long time. It was fine during their first few years together back in Cambridge. Then, on her twenty-fourth birthday, Eleanor had confessed that she wanted to start a family. Edwin didn't feel ready yet. He thought that they were too young to be tied down, and he committed the cardinal sin of saying so.
She said she understood his need for time, but in his mind that time was measured in years rather than months. Before long, Eleanor became frustrated and angry.
In true alpha-male fashion, Edwin did what every red-blooded man confronted with an angry woman would have done: he hid.
He spent his nights at the office, and convinced himself that he was doing it for both of them. 'I've got to earn enough for two now,' he had declared as his days began to start earlier, and finish later.
Edwin shook his head sadly, and looked around the office which had become his refuge. There were no tumblers in the office, so he upended the dregs of a coffee mug onto his ficus, and set the mug back down on his desk before pouring himself a generous tot.
He drank the amber liquid in one, setting his lips aflame. Brandy wasn't his tipple of choice, but on this occasion it seemed fitting. It had been a brandy his father-in-law offered when Edwin asked for Eleanor's hand in marriage. He poured himself another tot, and then raised his glass to the empty office, a mocking toast to the demise of his marriage.
After several drinks, Edwin reached for the envelope again. His eyes struggled to focus as he read the reason that Eleanor had cited for the divorce: irreconcilable differences, which, Edwin thought, was as vague as only a legal document could be.
But Edwin knew what it meant. Their marriage had been on the rocks ever since they'd tried to start a family. They'd pretended, postured and tried to convince themselves otherwise but they'd never recovered from the death of their son, Drew.
It wasn't as if Edwin hadn't made an effort. Before Drew had been born, Edwin had taken early paternity leave to decorate the nursery. It was late September at the time, and a chill had begun to rattle through their Belgravia townhouse.
The townhouse was a fix-me-up. It was safe, and it was in one of London's priciest residential areas, but the interior was a shambles.
The room Eleanor chose for the nursery was on the top floor, right across the hall from the master bedroom. It was far too cold for a child. Something had to be done before young Drew arrived, and no expense was spared in making it a nursery fit for a king.
With Edwin's determined supervision, it came together in no time. He added a new stud wall and stuffed the gap with insulating foam, and then painted it a vibrant mix of green and blue. The colour scheme had been recommended as soothing by Eleanor's best friend, a child psychologist. Edwin couldn't see what was so special about it, but if it kept the peace it was worth the cost of two tins of Dulux.
It was October 30th when Eleanor felt the fateful contractions during a family dinner. The food was abandoned, and Edwin rushed her straight to Barkantine Birth Centre at St Bartholomew's Hospital. On arrival, it became apparent that something was wrong.
Eleanor had abnormally high blood pressure, and was rushed into an emergency caesarean section, but it was too late. The baby was a breech birth, and Drew was born with his umbilical cord wrapped tight around his neck.
Soon after, Eleanor sank into a deep depression which didn't lift until she fell pregnant again four years later. They stayed together – united in grief at first, and later by the arrival of baby Chelsea. But something had changed, and they drifted apart.
Edwin rested his head on one hand, and lazily flicked through the paperwork with the other. There were pages and pages of legalese which he skimmed before reaching the final document: a financial summary detailing the assets they had to divide up. Their entire marriage had been reduced to a series of valuations. Shares, account balances, even his book collection had been appraised. Underneath the assets were a series of red numbers indicating debts to be taken off.
Edwin clucked at the total printed in bold at the bottom of the page. The sum total of their wealth was dismal, all things considered. They had great jobs. They owned their home. To the outside world, they were the picture-perfect professional couple.
But fate hadn't been kind to their finances. They'd invested heavily in shares, mostly banks and Fortune 500 companies. 'It's the right thing to do,' Eleanor's father had said. 'Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves
But what went up had to come down. In late 2007 the bottom fell out of the market.
At first the crash seemed to be confined to the French bank La Société, but it quickly became apparent that bad debt had been spread throughout the global banking system. Edwin swirled his brandy around absentmindedly as he remembered reporting on the bank collapses with glee. He never thought that mortgages in far-off countries would ever affect his little empire. But they did. In a few short months, the Murphys' supposedly prudent investment into banks and big blue chip companies saw almost two thirds wiped off the family books in a little over a year.
While the losses were only on paper until they needed to sell, the shortfall left the Murphy family in precarious circumstances. They had foregone a repayment mortgage in favour of an interest-only mortgage and the crash wiped out their ability to repay the capital.
Eleanor blamed her husband for losing thousands, and a succession of arguments ensued. Plates were thrown, insults slung and Edwin spent many nights on the sofa.
They tried spending time apart. Eleanor began to spend every other weekend with her parents in Sandbanks. When that failed to improve things, a trial separation lead to Edwin moving out of the townhouse and into a one-bedroom flat in Angel. Soon they were seeing othe
r people, or at least Eleanor was.
Edwin threw himself into his work with a vengeance, spending up to fourteen hours a day in the office. Even on a Sunday, Edwin could be found at his desk tapping away at his laptop, proofing, cutting, and expounding his own views in the Sunday editor's column.
In retrospect the divorce was inevitable. Edwin sighed, scribbled a note to his secretary to find the best divorce solicitors she could and resolved to take the rest of the day off.
***
The following Monday was a beautifully clear morning. The previous weekend's mist had settled further north and for once Edwin's small apartment felt bright and happy as the light splayed across the kitchen worktop, making the metallic sink dance.
Edwin woke early that morning. He had an eight o 'clock meeting with the American owner of The Impartial, Derek Wood, and Mr Wood did not like to be kept waiting. Edwin wolfed down a small slice of toast with no butter. He could risk nothing fancier than that, otherwise his queasy stomach might betray him. As he showered, Edwin ran over the numbers in his mind once more. He could massage the stats only so far. Today was the day he would have to finally come clean and let Mr Wood know that the ad revenues were down for the third successive quarter.
Resolving to be blunt but honest, Edwin patted himself dry and then donned his favourite suit. It was a three-piece in dark navy wool, with a wide pin. Eleanor used to call it his power suit. He carefully donned a matching tie, straightened it using the tiny mirror above the bathroom sink, then pronounced himself respectable and left the flat to flag down a taxi.
***
On the North Bank of the River Thames, a wall of tall and imposing buildings crowded the skyline, stretching from the City all the way to Westminster and beyond.
In the City of London, colloquially known as the Square Mile, office blocks clawed skywards. Men in suits, working mostly in big banks and for insurance companies, could be seen scurrying around behind the windows. Many were clutching coffees, trying to revive vacant stares with an injection of caffeine.
To the west, the skyline changed. St Paul's Cathedral interrupted the office buildings, its iconic domed peak towering three hundred and sixty-five feet above the tourists below.
Further west still were some of London's most prestigious addresses, among which lay The Impartial's head office at One-Sixty-Three Fleet Street. Few tourists ventured into the area, but it was as busy as any other.
The Impartial was in the heart of legal London, a stone's throw from the Royal Courts of Justice. Although many newspapers had been priced out of the area, The Impartial was still based on the same site which it had always occupied, a minute away from the Thames.