The Lock Up

THE LOCK-UP A DCI BOYD THRILLER ALEX SCARROW Copyright © 2023 by Alex Scarrow All rights reserved This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Published by GrrBooks CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Epilogue DCI BOYD RETURNS IN Acknowledgments Also by Alex Scarrow About the Author Dad, this is the Boyd book you never got a chance to read. I hope, if there’s some kind of afterlife, you can read it over my shoulder. This one’s for you. Miss you, mate. X 1 ‘All right, everyone! Thanks for turning up so early… but let’s have some quiet in here, please!’ Colin Holmes turned away from the bellowing storage-unit manager to his friend and patted the wad of notes in his jacket pocket. ‘It’s this unit we want, Sid.’ Sid had a wad of notes too, clutched tightly in both hands. ‘Why this one?’ he asked. ‘What’s so special about it?’ Colin nodded at the yellow corrugated pull-up door, on which was stencilled ‘Unit 37’, Banksy style. ‘It’s one of the older ones. Look at the edges,’ he said, pointed them out. ‘The paint’s chipped.’ From experience, Colin knew what to look out for. Frequent opening tended to chip the paint at the sides of the door and the storage company repainted them when the units became vacant. ‘Means it’s been used for ages. Might be full of old stuff that’s worth something,’ he said. He glanced at Sid. ‘You sure you’re okay with me doing the bidding?’ Sid nodded. It was his first auction and he’d taken a giant leap of faith in stumping up his half of the money – five hundred quid was no small amount in these hard-pressed times. ‘Sure. Just don’t go mad, though.’ Colin shook his head. ‘We’ve a ceiling bid of a grand. I promise. But we won’t get anywhere close to it, mate. Trust m–’ ‘Quiet! Please!’ barked the manager. Colin shut up. ‘All right, then. Here we have Unit Thirty-Seven. Its ten-year lease expired last year and I’ve not been able to get hold of the renter, so its contents are up for grabs now. Right then, let’s start the bidding.’ This morning, Colin noticed, only a small crowd of panners had turned up. And most of them had gone once the previous unit’s auction had run its course. That unit was so old that even the number itself had started to chip off the corrugated iron. The veteran panners had all been there for that one and the bid price had crept up to just over six hundred. ‘Starting bid of fifty!’ began the manager. ‘Let me hear fifty.’ A hand raised beside Colin. ‘Fifty, bid. One hundred, anyone?’ Colin cautiously side-eyed the other dozen or so bidders gathered there. Not yet. Hold on. Don’t look too keen. He kept his hand down. Another hand went up. The manager asked for one fifty and the first bidder raised his hand again. ‘Two hundred?’ the manager called out. Colin had managed to rally Sid into going halves with him fairly easily, because Sid’s second-hand shop was starting to look pretty bare. Colin had thought that the recession would have been a boom time for Sid, but quite the opposite had happened. No one seemed to be moving house or refurbishing and thus willing to part with resaleable household items just to be rid of them. And the people who did come into his old warehouse were after silly-priced, rock-bottom bargains. Sid was desperate for some super-cheap items that he could tart up and fill the floor with again. ‘Two fifty!’ The manager beamed at a ruddy-faced woman with frizzy long ginger hair tumbling down over her rounded shoulders and a T-shirt that bore a caricature of Harry and Meghan and the words ‘Ginge & Whinge’. ‘Thank you, love. Do I hear three hundred?’ Colin chanced another glance at his fellow bidders. Interest seemed to be waning now. ‘Three hundred? Anyone?’ Colin raised his hand with a show of vague interest. ‘Excellent! Three fifty, folks. Do I hear any advance on three fifty?’ Frizzy Hair met Colin’s gaze with a steely ‘Don’t even go there, sonny’ expression on her face. ‘Three-fifty,’ she said. Bollocks. ‘Four hundred? What d’ya say?’ asked the manager, looking at Colin. Sid was staring at him too, urging him to go for it. Easy, thought Colin. Not too keen. Not too keen. He shrugged, pulled a face and began to make a show of turning away. Then, just as the manager was shifting towards the woman, Colin paused and raised a hand. ‘Go on, then. Let’s do four.’ The manager nodded at him. ‘Four, it is. Ma’am?’ Frizzy Hair curled her lip at Colin, then shook her head. ‘Four hundred! Four hundred!’ The manager hesitated before saying it a third time, then nodded at Colin. ‘It’s yours for four hundred.’ * * *