Thought it was about time I shared that very first chapter of my series about the feisty Jezzabelle Jones, an insurance investigator based in Sheffield, Yorkshire.

—

The vodka bottle lay discarded at the homeless man’s feet, the cap laid next to it. As he woke and tried to remove the images that loitered into his actual world, he picked up the bottle. Upright, it was still about a quarter full. He’d not realised, and the bottle slopped its contents onto his filthy cargo-pants. The pockets on one side darkened with the wetness of the clear, strong alcohol. It reminded him of his youth, a long distant memory when he’d sneaked out with a school friend. His friend had stolen a bottle from his parent’s kitchen cupboard and they’d sneaked into the shed at the bottom of the garden to drink it and try a cigarette. So long ago.
As he rummaged in the pocket, his fingers curled around the familiar shape of the card. It was dog-eared and now slightly stuck together with the vodka glue. He glanced down and opened the old bent and battered birthday card and gazed at the photograph inside. He’d carried it with him, since it reached him in the Iraqi desert. He stroked it dry, a touchstone to happy times. It grounded him, just a look into the innocent eyes of his daughter. Her face smudged. Lines made it appear she had tears streaked down her face. Her eyes no longer gazed back lovingly from an innocent time. They appealed to him, judged him, cried for him.
He folded it again, tucking it safely back inside the card with ‘Happy Birthday Daddy’ in gold lettering, a shiny reminder of how life could have been. The card fell to his lap. He left it there as he went to sip from the bottle, but a bird landed on the window-sill next to him, made him jump. He dropped the bottle, and the alcohol slopped onto the card in his lap. It soaked both the card and his groin with cool dampness.
‘Shit!’
He pressed the dog-eared card and photograph onto the blanket he lay on, tried to dry it, brushed it off with his grubby hand. He tucked it into his jacket, safe against his heart in the pocket that held his tobacco. The icy breeze was picking up, freezing temperatures were only weeks away. He downed the last of the vodka, promised this was the last time he’d drown his sorrows. What a ridiculous saying.
‘Drown your sorrows?’
How many times he and his army mates had said that to each other after they’d picked up pieces of each other from a bloody battlefield? His football mates in the local after they’d lost the match. His Dad when arguments flared or marriages failed, as they both had. He would drown nothing else, he’d never managed it so far and knew it wasn’t a skill he’d ever be able to achieve. He placed the bottle at his side. Empty. Sorrows drowned for the last time. Tomorrow he was going to get to the hostel, not to stay. That way he’d just get dragged down into a drug haze and vodka wouldn’t taste of anything, ever again. He’d shower, get that volunteer to cut his hair, borrow the clippers to shear this beard back to a crop. His hand rubbed through the thick bristles growing long on his chin. He’d always hated beards, had hidden behind one for too long. Tomorrow he’d look at this own face again. He lay down and closed his eyes, and for the first time in a long while he slept without nightmares.
In his sleep, he pushed his icy hands inside his hole-stricken jumper, a second layer over a blue hoody. The jumper had a flamboyant pattern, a 1980s fashion statement. They had given it to him at the soup kitchen last month. The bright fair isle now greyed by a layer of dust and street grime, sweat, snot and grease. He’d unknowingly rubbed against the roller-shutters and picked up heavy oil on that first night. As he slept, the stench of oil crept into his dreams and triggered memories he almost had the strength to suppress in his conscious hours. Helicopters brought in the blue enveloped mail between deliveries of supplies, tins of beans, alongside tins of bullets. The weapons of war dropped off at speed before he had to help load the broken and bleeding bodies. The engines being checked, fuel pumped into greedy aircraft’s engines through thick pipes, while he hefted black plastic body bags heavy with the dead weight of his friends, or at least the bits they’d found.
In his nightmares, the bodies wriggled and writhed before they ripped through the thick zipped bags. Sticking their fingers, then hands, through the gaps and grabbing at his arms, desperate bloody claws sinking into his flesh. They clawed at him in some sort of useless defiance of the next life that called from the bright light beyond.
He’d tried to ‘man up’ and ignore these dreams, but they got stronger. The oil stench triggered ever more vivid images. Last night, it had driven him one more step towards insanity. He had just one chance to survive and one last tactic to employ before he gave in to the demons.

He awoke to a strange feeling, one he wasn’t familiar with. He was sweating. Not because of nightmares, but because he was hot. At first, he wondered if he’d dreamt of the desert again. No, he sat up. It was hot. November, it had been frosty as he’d lay down. His breath had steamed against the sleeping bag as he drew it over his head. November should not be hot. Something was wrong. He sat up and at first thought the windows were frosted with ice, then he remembered the windows were all crazed. Many now shot out. The haze was smoke. Beyond it, he could see an orange glow. The windows that had previously survived were popping out. That noise must have been what woke him. As he jumped up, his sleeping bag fell to the floor. Immediately he regretted this sudden move, took a deep breath full of acrid smoke and coughed so hard it made his lungs ache. He dropped to his knees and tried to gasp in fresh air, hoping the smoke wouldn’t follow him. He had to get out of here. The heat warmed his hands through the floor. He shook his head. His cough rasped in his chest as he breathed in smoke. He had to move. Now. The door was on the other side of the building. He glanced over and saw his makeshift barricade hidden in the smoke, which was now about a foot above the floor. The floor smoked odd patches of flame where carpets had been rolled away, to expose long since stolen copper pipework.
The barricade had become a pyre. He could see the glow within the smoke. If only he could get to it, maybe he could drag it aside and get out. Another bout of coughing grabbed his lungs, the smoke burned his throat. His eyes streamed and blurred his vision. He battled to pull his feet from the sleeping bag still twisted around his boots. He was on all fours and the smoke now sat around him, thick and hot. The red glow of fire outside grew brighter, the heat through the floor burned his fingers. A sudden crack and the floor just feet from him gave way, a shot of flame made him scramble back, the heat flare blistered his face.
The flare ripped open the roof. Fresh air drew the fire upwards and for a second gave him hope of breathing space. Just a second before the back draft fed the fire, red hot air sucked back in. The carpet at his feet now glowed with heat. He squatted in the corner, a wild animal cornered by a predator, eyes wide and red. Smoke and snot mixed on his face as he realised his only possible escape to the doorway was now impossible, a huge gaping hole in the floor between him and the pile of burning office furniture.

The hole in the floor had given a temporary respite from the smoke as it escaped upward through a hole in the ceiling. He had one last chance. If he could crawl around the hole in the floor, maybe, just maybe, he could smash his way out of the windows. OK, so he’d probably die from the fall to the ground, but hey it was worth a shot. He had to see his daughter again, just had to. If only he could get to the window, maybe someone was out there.
He lifted his head to set off on his last desperate run for life. He coughed, bent double with the effort of getting some precious air into his lungs to replace the smoke.
The last thing he heard was a thunderous rumble and crack as the remaining roof caved in. Tiles and timbers fell through the centre of the building. The floor gave way and fell with a load of burning debris through to the ground floor.
The last thing he felt was the agony as his leg caught light. The alcohol he’d spilt the night before flared. He only felt it for a moment before he collapsed. He fell forward onto his makeshift bed, his daughter’s photograph still tucked against his heart.
As the building collapsed, blue flashing lights illuminated the red sky. The cracking of timbers and falling masonry punctuated by fire engine sirens. The firefighters rolled out hoses and shouted directions.
Around the other side of the building, a figure in a hoodie climbed into the black 4 x 4. The engine purred to life and the vehicle pulled away, back into suburbia.

Find out if Jezzabelle and Mac can solve the case.
Download the Book HERE