The Mushroom Man (25 page)

‘Yes. Badly,’ I replied.

‘Well, that should do it. Tell my delightful receptionist to give you the first appointment in seven days’ time. How are the testicles?’

I rolled my sleeve down. ‘Feeling unwanted. How are yours?’

‘Mind your own business. You seem to be back to your old cheerful self, Charlie. It’s good to see.’

‘It’s all a front, Sam. Inside I’m scareder than a kitten on a clothes line. See you next week.’

The weather was still good so I decided that the outside of the house would benefit from a lick of paint. I dragged the ladders out of the garage and
set them up against the back bedroom window. The neighbours came out to watch.

‘Painting your windows?’ said the man.

‘Er, that’s right,’ I answered.

He sucked in a long breath. ‘Bit back-endish for painting, if you ask me,’ he declared.

I scraped the loose paint off and gave the frame a good coating of white gloss. The neighbours have a little sun lounge attached to the back of their house, where they like to sit and read or drink tea. It looks very pleasant. Just as I was finishing I noticed that they were both in there, but had swivelled their wicker chairs round so that they could sit watching me.

‘Right, you buggers,’ I muttered. I clambered down the ladder and rummaged about in the garage until I found what I wanted.

Back up the ladder I painted the big pane of glass bright blue, the next one red. The little one that opens received a coat of canary yellow. Well, they did ask if I was painting the windows, I said to myself.

The two of them stared at me as if they had just discovered that a psychopathic monster lived next door. I pointed with the paint brush. ‘Mondrian,’ I shouted, but they couldn’t hear me through their double glazing.

It’s more difficult to be cheerful when there is no audience. I tried to eat decent food, to keep the
resistance high, but had little appetite for anything. Gilbert was right, I decided – I should have told Annabelle the truth, right from the beginning. I wished I had a photograph of her.

A politician was assassinated in Spain and England were walloped by Romania at football. An airliner crashed in Russia and Rhoda Flannery died in the prison hospital. Maybe she had the last laugh, after all.

The seventh morning dawned bright and frosty. I showered and dressed in comfortable clothes: jeans, woollen shirt, leather jacket and trainers. I scraped the ice off the windscreen, put a load of stuff in the boot that I might need later and drove to the surgery.

It was ten to nine and Sam’s car was already there. I was OK until I parked the car, then I started shaking and had difficulty locking the door.

Three patients were already waiting, huddled within themselves like starving peasants awaiting an audience with the laird. The receptionist switched her smile to main beam and started saying: ‘Dr Evans says you’re to go straight…’ but I was already knocking on his door.

‘Good morning, Charlie. Take a seat,’ he said, placing a letter he was reading back on his desk.

‘No thanks, Sam. Are they the results?’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘So what do they say?’

He turned the letter towards me and pushed it forwards. Bless you, Sam, you didn’t make a drama out of it. A huge smile split his face as he said: ‘The tests confirm that you are not HIV positive. Congratulations, Charlie, you’ve beaten it.’

I flopped in the chair and threw my head back, gulping in great draughts of beautiful fresh air like a man dragged out of the quicksand in the nick of time.

Sam was rabbiting on, but I was hardly listening: ‘…so if you haven’t used a dirty needle or had unprotected sex since you were in hospital, we can safely say you are fit and healthy.’

I didn’t remember having unprotected sex when I was in hospital. Must have been asleep for that bit. I gave him the grin and just nodded my appreciation of what he was saying.

He delved into one of the drawers at his side of the desk and produced a bottle of champagne. ‘Have a celebratory drink on me,’ he said.

‘Now?’ I suggested, taking it from him. It was the first word uttered by the new Charlie Priest.

‘Er, no. I don’t think my patients would appreciate it. Better make it some other time. By the way, Yvonne said I’ve to invite you to lunch on Sunday. Can you make it?’

I held up the bottle. ‘I’ll bring the booze,’ I said.

‘Good. Smashing.’

I stood up to leave. ‘Thanks for everything, Sam.’

‘You’re welcome, Charlie. It’s good news for all of us, you know, not just you.’

He walked to the door with me. ‘So what are you going to do next?’ he asked. We were down to the small talk.

‘Next? Good question. Suddenly there’s a next. Back to catching villains, I suppose.’

‘I meant today.’

‘Oh, today. Driving,’ I replied. ‘I’ve got to go to Guildford.’

‘Guildford. That’s a long way.’

I looked at my watch. ‘Yes, and I’m running late.’

‘Well, take it steady.’

‘No chance. Flat out all the way. See you Sunday.’

I pulled the door closed behind me. The number of grey faces in the waiting room had doubled and the receptionist had removed her spectacles. We exchanged warm smiles. I thrust the bottle of champers forward and hollered: ‘Next!’ as I strode towards the exit.

Try to leave ’em with a smile, that’s my motto. It’s not always this easy, but if it was, anybody could do it.

If you enjoyed
The Mushroom Man
, read on to find
out about the other books in the
Charlie Priest series … 

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Detective Inspector Charlie Priest believes in doing things by the book. It’s just that, in the heat of the chase, he sometimes turns over two pages at once. His unorthodox ways have held him at inspector level for a record-breaking length of time; however DI Priest does get results. When Charlie suspects a now-respected businessman, with a background of extortion and GBH, of involvement in international art fraud, he’s taking on an enemy with friends in high places. But Charlie can be persistent to the point of recklessness – and, once he’s realised that there’s a link to the lethal doctored heroin that’s striking down the local kids, no threat will stop him …

Detective Inspector Charlie Priest is officially on sick leave, but this brief break from work comes to an abrupt end when Mrs Marina Norris’s chauffeur is found dead from unnatural causes – namely a blast to the head from a Kalashnikov. Meanwhile, big-time drug smugglers on the Hull–Rotterdam run demand his attention. His contact, Kevin, is a lowly cog in the great smuggling wheel, and easily hoodwinked into believing that Charlie’s line of business is similar to his own. But the real villains are not such pushovers, and when Charlie uncovers a connection with his previous enquiry he realises that he’s on very dangerous territory indeed.

Hartley Goodrich has been found dead in his armchair, right beside the flowerpot that caused the gaping gash in his head. There’s little doubt that this was murder, and when Detective Inspector Charlie Priest discovers that Hartley’s financial advice had lost his clients a small fortune, there’s no shortage of murder suspects either. But is the case all it seems? The enquiry reopens an investigation that fizzled out years before, involving diamonds, drugs and stolen gold bullion … and plenty of danger to boot. But when everything he holds dear is threatened, Charlie knows he can’t stop digging until he’s found out exactly what’s been going down on his patch …

When Dr Clive Jordan’s dazzling career is brought to an abrupt end by a bullet, his colleagues are devastated – especially the female ones. If the doctor hadn’t been as discreet as an undertaker’s cough, Detective Inspector Charlie Priest would suspect a jealous husband. But it’s not going to be that simple. Charlie knows for certain there’s a killer on the loose – and almost certainly a rapist as well. The chances of bagging either of them seem slim, but Charlie’s a lot tougher and smarter than his affable manner indicates, and that’s bad news for the villains on his patch. 

Charlie Priest was a newly promoted sergeant on the Leeds force when he was called to the scene of a tragic fire, deliberately set. Now a DI in nearby Heckley, Charlie jumps at the chance to reopen the investigation when a message left by a suicide victim suggests a new lead. Meanwhile, Charlie’s under pressure to apprehend the burglars who’re playing a dangerous game with wealthy elderly couples. By a combination of luck, detective work and, Charlie would say, soaring flights of the investigative imagination, he is soon closing in on the perpetrators of both crimes. But a cornered villain can be dangerous for a copper who’ll take every kind of risk in the hunt for justice.

Super-salesman Tony Silkstone wreaks a terrible revenge when he comes home to discover his wife dead, apparently strangled by her lover after a sex game that went wrong. But Detective Inspector Charlie Priest is the investigating officer, and he cannot be convinced that this murder is as cut and dried as it seems. When a hitman comes to town, Charlie is more interested in identifying the proposed target than in arresting the hitman, a strategy that produces surprising results. And when links are found between Mrs Silkstone’s killer and the murder of a young girl in another part of the country, Charlie follows the trail only to discover that he is suddenly faced with difficult questions about his friends and his feelings towards them.

Laura Heeley was just an average mother of two, but at the age of thirty-eight her life was swiftly taken from her, stabbed in the back on the way home from bingo. Colinette Jones was a popular, attractive and intelligent student, but she has been strangled, her body dumped on the roadside. What is the connection between the two victims? Detective Inspector Charlie Priest must solve the mystery, though with no clear motive and police movements restricted by foot-and-mouth disease this proves an increasingly frustrating task. As the number of victims mounts, it becomes clear to Priest that this could be his biggest challenge yet …

DI Charlie Priest is wise-cracking his way through his daily routine, but it’s not long before the clouds roll in. Someone has been tampering with food tins in the local supermarket. A national scare ensues and if Charlie doesn’t act fast he could be dealing with a murder inquiry. As if that wasn’t enough, he learns that an organised dog-fighting ring has set up operations nearby. Charlie’s relationship with Rosie has reached a rocky patch too. When Charlie gets to the bottom of her change of heart he is somewhat concerned, and offers his help. But, as he’s about to learn, sometimes helping only makes things worse …

Joe Crozier, a businessman with a decidedly shady past, is enjoying an evening of being wined and dined. But after refusing to sell his nightclub, the Painted Pony, he is bound and gagged, and takes a silent and deadly dip into the nearby river. Meanwhile, DI Charlie Priest is called to the murder scene of the famous mountaineer Tony Krabbe, who has been attacked with his own ice axe. Charlie’s love-life then takes a turn for the worse. He is desperate to seek out the truth in the two murder cases, but can love and violent death ever make comfortable bedfellows … or will Charlie finally be pushed over the edge?

Is selling your employer’s confidential records enough to warrant a particularly sadistic murder? Acting DCI Charlie Priest asks himself when handed the file on a bizarre murder. Appearances deceive, and it transpires that the victim may have been chosen simply because of his physical appearance. And when another body turns up, Charlie begins to wonder if he himself is the catalyst that motivates the killer. Before long he is embroiled in much more than a hunt for a murderer – now it is personal.

The monthly superintendents’ meetings never hold much excitement for DI Charlie Priest, but this time he is in for a surprise. DCS Colin Swainby is to resign, quietly and without fuss, because certain allegations have been made against him. Allegations involving a woman, and it’s not his wife. When MP Edward Gross finds himself similarly compromised, he also opts for a quiet exit, but his has a far more permanent outcome. Priest knows there must be a connection – he has to prove it before the body count starts escalating.

DI Charlie Priest is on gardening leave – the neighbours have complained about his weeds – when the call comes. Ghislaine Curzon, girlfriend of one of the royal princes, is in Heckley to open the Curzon Centre, a new shopping mall and conference facility. But as she reveals the commemorative plaque it looks like someone has got to it first, defacing it with a single obscene word in foot-high red letters. The visiting dignitaries are aghast and the chief constable insists on Charlie investigating the case. When the mayor of Heckley and driving force behind the construction of the controversial new mall is found murdered, killed by a single shot to the head, the investigation takes a deadly turn. It’s going to take more than standard police procedure to crack this case.