Spotlight: Blood Rival by Jake Arnott
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It happened at a place where three roads meet.
At Junction 1A of the M25, heading east towards Gravesend. A savage act of road rage leaves Lee Royale, the feared "King of Kent" dead. But was it a random attack, or a premeditated move in a deadly game of betrayal and revenge?
As shockwaves ripple through the criminal underworld, three lives are set on a collision course: Jo Royale, Lee’s disillusioned and embittered wife, hiding secrets that could kill; Eddie Pierce, Jo’s ambitious new lover, determined to move up the criminal ranks, whose obsession with her threatens to consume him; and Commander Ray Spinks, a corrupt cop with his own claim on Lee’s legacy — and no intention of letting it slip through his fingers.
Caught between lust and loyalty, ambition and guilt, each of them will risk everything to uncover or bury the explosive truth behind Lee's death. Because this wasn’t just a murder. It was a reckoning.
Blood Rival is a neo-noir reimagining of Greek tragedy, a compulsive psychological thriller steeped in forbidden desire, family secrets, and fatal ambition.
Excerpt
He wandered into the kitchen. Put his briefcase on the table and his mobile phone next to it. He slipped out the dreaded envelope, put it under his arm. Checking the fridge he found an open bottle of Sancerre. He poured himself a glass and went through to the drawing room.
He took a gulp of wine and sighed as he entered his lavish book-lined chamber. He hadn’t felt this happy in years. This would be his refuge now. But as he walked across toward the marble fireplace he saw something that gave his whole body a horrible, sickening start. Someone was sitting on the oxblood Chesterfield facing the window.
It was Ray Spinks.
“Hello, Brian,” he said in a smoothly threatening tone.
“Jesus,” Colby felt the envelope slip out of his armpit onto the floor.
“Sorry for the, er, intrusion. You know, you should really upgrade the security on this place.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I know. I should have made an appointment. Very naughty of me just barging in like this. But what are you going to do? Call the police?”
Spinks gave a mirthless grin, his mouth twisted in a ghastly rictus. The eyes coldly vigilant, though. It was then that Colby noticed that his visitor was wearing surgical gloves and blue plastic overshoes.
“Ray,” he croaked.
“Take a seat, Brian,” Spinks motioned to the armchair opposite him and then leant over to pick up what had been dropped. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Listen,” Colby tried to reason as he sat down.
“Shh,” Spinks insisted and broke the seal on the package. “Let’s have little look, shall we?”
He slid out a sheaf of documents, tossed the envelope onto the sofa and began to leaf through the paperwork slowly.
“You know what this is, right?” Spinks peered up at Colby.
“I don’t know anything, really Ray. I was just instructed to hold it in a secure place for my client.”
“And you were going to hand this over to that bitch Jo Royle?”
“Well, it’s yours now Ray, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then…then…everything’s OK. Isn’t it?”
“Ah, but you can see my problem now, can’t you Brian? I can’t have too many people knowing about this.”
“I told you. I’ve never known the contents of that envelope. Honest to God.”
“But you can see this puts me in a difficult position. I need to know that you don’t know. Don’t I?”
“Yes, but…”
“So, let’s have a little guessing game, shall we?”
“No need for that, Ray.”
“What creature walks on four legs in the morning? Two legs at noon…”
“Please, don’t do this.”
“…and three legs in the evening. Hmm, last one’s a bit of a clue, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Of course you do, Brian,” Spinks pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Colby. “You’re an educated man. Come on, tell me.”
“Well, it’s, it’s ‘man’.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why? Why is it ‘man’?”
“It’s how we go through life – a baby walking on its arms and legs, an adult on two legs, an old person walking with a stick.”
“But what does that mean?”
“What?’
“Man. What’s the significance of that?”
“Come on, Ray, please…”
Spinks gestured with the gun.
“Tell me. What does ‘man’ mean?”
“I don’t know, it’s, it’s…” Colby struggled for some sort of convincing answer. “Humanity? The progress we make through our existence? Mortality?”
“You were always a clever cunt, Brian. Too clever, I think.”
“Look, I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what ‘man’ means.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Please, Ray.”
“Sorry, Brian.”
And with that Spinks shot Colby through the heart.
He blacked out for about thirty seconds. When he came to, he found himself on the floor, slumped over the coffee table. Blood was pumping out of his chest, drenching his expensive Persian carpet, the antique kilim with the beautiful elibelinde motif he had found in a shop on the Portobello Road ten years before. The bemusement he felt in finding that he was still alive was tempered by a dread that he didn’t have much time left.
He heard his mobile ring in the kitchen. He tried to get up but found he could only move his head and his right arm. Ray Spinks had gone, his line of vision was limited, but he was certain of that. If only he could get to his phone. He struggled to push himself up but he slipped back down onto the tabletop, his face close to the leather spine of the John Donne volume he had been so keen to get back to that day.
And as he listened to ring tone, a passage of that work came to him, from its most famous part: ‘Meditation XVII’ with its opening: Now this bell tolling softly for another says to me, Thou must die. He shuddered in bitter laughter. Blood began to fill his mouth. But in his last moments he had an inspiration. A clue he could leave behind, if only he had enough strength.
He grabbed the book and leafed through to that section. A well-thumbed page, thank God, not hard to find. He flattened the book out with his arm and reached for the pen next to it. He was struggling to breath now and pain surged through his body. But this last thought kept him going. He would write something, after all. Or at least make a mark. Leave a message.
Because Spinks was right, he did know what the riddle really meant, and now he could pass that on. He took the pen and, hovering it over a well-known line in the middle of the passage, lowered the nib gently to make a single scratch. A comma, yes, that would do it, he thought. Just a bit of punctuation. Grammatical particle physics: one tiny quantum of information that could change the meaning a line completely. And poetic justice for Ray Spinks, he hoped as he took his last breath. For the man had surely punctuated him. With a hole in the heart. A full stop.
This excerpt is taken from Jake Arnott’s Blood Rival, out on October 14th priced £18.99. Blood Rival is a neo-noir reimagining of Greek tragedy, a compulsive psychological thriller steeped in forbidden desire, family secrets, and fatal ambition.
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About the Author
Jake Arnott is an award-winning novelist whose bestselling debut The Long Firm was a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year” and was adapted as a BAFTA award-winning BBC TV drama series starring Mark Strong and Sir Derek Jacobi.
His second novel, He Kills Coppers was made into a critically acclaimed ITV1 series, starring Rafe Spall and Kelly Reilly. Along with his third book, truecrime, this trilogy was awarded the Crime Writers Association “Dagger in the Library”. His subsequent novels include Johnny Come Home, Devil’s Paintbrush, The House of Rumour and The Fatal Tree.
