A Killing Resurrected Read Online Free Page B

then he’d held the bag open and pointed to the money on the table and on the floor.
    â€˜The one who had hold of Sharon made it very clear that she would be hurt if I didn’t do what they wanted,’ Grady continued, ‘so I got down on my hands and knees and scooped that money into the bag as fast as I could. I’m not easily scared, but those bastards had me going, and with Sharon there I wasn’t going to take any chances. All I wanted by that time was for the two of us to come out alive.’
    When asked for descriptions, neither Grady nor his daughter could come up with anything worth circulating. ‘It was hard to tell with them all dressed in black and the clothes being so baggy and all,’ Grady told Rogers.
    The inspector had tried another tack. ‘You’re a fairly big man,’ he said, ‘yet you say you were hauled out of your chair by the man behind you. Was he bigger than you? Was he particularly strong? Did you notice any smell? Tobacco? Aftershave? Body odour? Anything at all?’
    â€˜The way he was using that iron bar, the bugger didn’t need to be strong,’ the landlord growled. ‘One tug on my collar, and I got the message. Sorry, but I can’t tell you more than that – except they had a car waiting.’
    â€˜Colour? Make? Registration?’ Rogers had asked, and was told that neither Grady nor his daughter had actually
seen
the car; they were too shaken to go to the door until they were sure the men had gone.
    Sharon had said it had sounded more like a van to her. ‘Heavier motor, more like my boyfriend’s van.’
    Rogers had taken the reference literally and checked on the boyfriend, but he’d been working that night, and had an airtight alibi. Several days later, the burnt-out remains of a van, reported missing the night before the robbery, was found in a gully on a piece of wasteland on the Welsh border. Forensic had it for a week, but found nothing to connect it to the robbery.
    Nothing more had been heard of the gang in the months that followed, and the general feeling by midsummer was that the robbery had been a one-off, probably prompted by someone learning that the money taken over the holiday weekend wouldn’t be banked until the following Tuesday. So, with no further activity and with no new evidence to go on, the case was quietly shelved and more or less forgotten.
    Until shortly after one o’clock on a Saturday morning in July, when four men, dressed in black, baggy clothes, wearing ski masks, and each carrying a short iron bar, burst into the home of a local solicitor, where he and a small group of business friends were enjoying their weekly poker game. The stakes weren’t large by some standards, but there could be chips worth several hundred pounds on the table at any given time, and the rule of the house was that all bets had to be settled in cash at the end of the evening.
    Four men and one woman were at the table: Walter Roach, the host of the weekly card game; Paul Preston, owner of a leasing company dealing in heavy earth-moving equipment; Roy Appleyard, who owned a plumbing business; Alice Nelson, owner-manager of the Broadminster Volvo dealership; and Dr Gerald Warden one of the partners in the Broadminster Medical Clinic.
    As before, the gang moved in fast, demonstrating with one swift blow to the front of an antique bookcase that they meant business. Two of them hauled Alice from her seat, slapped tape over her mouth, then sat her down again, while the other two laid their weapons against the neck of Roach and Appleyard as a warning. Once again, not a word was spoken.
    Directed by flash cards, the players were told that no one would be hurt if they did as they were told. If they resisted, the woman would be the first to be hurt. To demonstrate, one of the men forced Alice’s hand on to the table, then slammed his weapon down within inches of her fingers. ‘And then,’ Roach