Table of Contents
Prologue
Epilogue
Praise for K.A. Richardson
Also by K.A. Richardson
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
A Note from Bloodhound Books:
Acknowledgments
Watch You Burn
The North East Police Series
KA Richardson
Contents
Praise for K.A. Richardson
Also by K.A. Richardson
Prologue
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
Epilogue
A Note from Bloodhound Books:
Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2017 K.A. Richardson
The right of K.A. Richardson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2017 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
PRINT ISBN: 978-1-912175-18-5
Created with Vellum
Praise for K.A. Richardson
" A natural storyteller who makes you care about her characters, she brings them all to life with just a few sentences. It’s amazing how quickly I became attached to the whole crew and I can’t wait to read more!"
Joanne Robertson @My Chestnut Reading Tree
"There are times when you read a book where you feel that it is so real you could turn Sky News on to see if there have been any further developments in the case. Well that is what it felt like with this book."
Susan Hampson @Books From Dusk Till Dawn
"As always KA Richardson writes excellently, providing the reader with insights into the minds of truly evil people and showing a brutal and harsh world existing around us."
Caroline Vincent @Bits About Books
"I loved everything about this book from the great characterisation through to the often uncomfortable plotline. The uncomfortable events laid out in the book only heightened the experience for me as a reader."
M A Comley - New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Justice series
"Great characterisation and natural sounding dialogue, the pace seems to bound along nicely, I found the characters to be credible and well developed..."
Lorraine Rugman @The Book Review Café
Also by K.A. Richardson
Have you read the other books in the best-selling North-East Police Series?
I’ve Been Watching You – Amazon UK – Amazon US
Time to Play – Amazon UK – Amazon US
For my fab Aunty Mary – who makes snow angels face down in the snow.
Prologue
The young girl covered her ears with her hands and huddled tighter into the corner of the cupboard beneath the stairs. If she squeezed really hard, she knew she could drown out the sound of her dad yelling at her mum. He did it all the time, but today it was really bad.
‘My tea isn’t even on. You get shopping money; I take care of the bills, what more do you bloody want? You're a sorry excuse for a bloody wife! This house is a shit tip. What did you do all day? Sit on your fat arse drinking coffee?'
The girl couldn't hear her mum’s reply, but she heard her squeal loudly, then start crying as her husband clipped her round the ear.
In a way, she could kind of understand why her dad kicked off with her mum. She did just sit at the dining table all day, her hands wrapped round a usually cold cup of tea or coffee, staring vacantly into space. It was the young girl who kept the house tidy and made sure there was food ready for her dad coming in from the pub - a big feat for a ten-year-old.
She just did whatever she could to stop the screaming.
Besides, she really didn't mind the cooking. It meant she got to use the stove.
She let her mind wander, remembering the blue glow of the flames as she used the long Cooks’ Matches to light the gas as it escaped from the ring with a hiss. She liked how the flames danced and moved, flickering brightly as the heat intensified. She didn't really understand how something so pretty could cause pain and damage. Sometimes, she held paper in the flame, enthralled as the paper caught and turned into a starburst of orange flames, watching it smoulder and curl, the heat travelling through towards her fingers. She had to fight the urge to set fire to things other than paper.
She flinched out of her day-dream as the front door slammed and her dad stormed out of the house, closely followed by another quieter click as her mum left, presumably to go across the road to her friend’s where she would sit and cry, and whine about what a horrible man her husband was. She would never leave, though, her husband always told her there wouldn’t be another man alive who'd put up with her… she believed him.
The girl unfurled herself from her hidey-hole and crept through to the kitchen. Why did they always have to argue? Why did her dad hit her mum? Was it the same for every family? She doubted so. Knowing it would calm her down, she lit a match, turned the gas on and smiled as it hissed. She liked to wait a moment before lowering the match: the longer she waited the more of a whooshing noise it made when it caught. Eventually, she lowered the match and a small giggle escaped as the resulting ignition made the noise she had come to love.
Glancing round, almost as if she expected her parents to walk back in, she turned back to the flame and stared, mesmerised. In a trance, she reached for the tea towel off the side, and scrunched it tight into a ball, placing it over the flame. It caught immediately, the fire licking through the cloth, teasing at the tatty, peeling wallpaper behind the cooker. The old, dry paper crackled and turned black before greeting the greedy flames as they quickly spread up the wall.
She just stood and stared.
1
24th September, 0510 hours - Edina Blaze's residence, Thompson Street West, Darlington
Edina Blaze didn't often wake up in the middle of the night for no reason.
She rubbed her hands over her eyes; her head was pounding and her mouth was coated in a thick residue – a definite reminder that drinking on a work night was never a good idea. Squeezing her eyes shut, she touched the lamp on the bedside table, causing light to spring forth. What had woken her anyway? Judging by the way she felt, she'd much rather have stayed asleep. She opened her eyes a crack and glanced at the clock. 5.10am What the hell? She never woke up that early, not anymore.
Suddenly she heard the front door click closed, and she sat bolt upright.
Come on Ed, think. What the hell did you do last night?
Looking to her left, she registered the disarray of the bedding on that side - putting two and two together, the answer clicked into place.
I brought someone back? Jesus Christ. I haven't done that for years. Idiot!
Pushing the duvet off her, she jumped out of bed and ran into the living room.
The bastard had probably nicked her purse and phone! But Ed frowned as she noticed them still on the hall table. A cursory check confirmed they hadn't been disturbed.
'What kind of bloke just shags someone and fucks off without so much as a goodbye?' she grumbled to herself as she made her way through to the kitchen and put the kettle on.
The kind you want nothing to do with.
Her mind taunted her with its reply. She knew her head was right though. Absentmindedly, she pulled the fridge door open and grabbed the milk. Who was it anyway? All she could remember was that he had lovely, kind brown eyes. Eyes that were haunted with pain of some kind, but eyes that had captivated her and allowed her to let her guard down. She distinctly remembered some post coital mumbling of a personal nature.
She jumped as the fridge door swung shut with a bang.
That's when she saw it.
The note on the fridge.
The same scrawny handwriting as it always had. Always addressing her as 'My darling Edina.'
Her heart pounded in her chest, and her hands felt clammy. For goodness’ sake, would he ever leave her alone? She presumed it was a he. The truth was she didn't have a clue. The notes had been appearing in her home in random places for the last twelve months. Always handwritten, always obscene. She'd handed them all over to the police but there was never any forensic evidence pointing to who it could be. She didn't know how he gained access to her home either. She'd changed her locks six times, finally deciding that changing them again was pointless. She'd paid for a surveyor too, but no one could tell her how he was getting in. She was at the point now where a ‘For Sale’ board had loitered on the front of the house for months. But without a single viewing, she knew she had little chance of it selling, which meant no hope of moving out.
The notes were obscene, filthy even, but there were never any threats of harm. Whoever the stalker was, she'd kind of learned to accept that he would leave notes and after the initial panic, and the constant knowledge that someone unknown had invaded her personal space, she tried her best to leave it to the cops to investigate, and tried not to let the fear rule her life. And most of the time it worked. Using a pair of gloves from under the sink, she bagged the note up without reading it. She'd drop it by the police station on her way to work later.
Maybe it was him? Maybe you just invited a complete stranger to your home and let him do the things he describes in those letters to you in bed.
Ed gasped as she realised the implication. How could she have been so stupid? He could have murdered her in her sleep for goodness’ sake. Do you even know if he used protection?
Bile rose into her throat – she'd have to get checked out.
Stupid idiot.
How could I let my guard down like that? With everything that had gone on, she should know better. She put the coffee on the side, suddenly feeling too sick to drink it. She wasn't due in her meeting at work until 11am – that should give her enough time to get to the GUM clinic at the hospital.
Leaving the house, she noticed one of the neighbours stood in the street a few doors down.
‘Hey Adam, I don’t suppose you noticed anyone hanging around last night? Someone’s been in my house.’
Adam was that know-it-all neighbour everyone had – the curtain twitcher, the Michael Caine of the neighbourhood. He knew everything about everyone in the street, and was often up late wandering the streets with his little terrier dog, Tike.
‘No, no, didn’t see anyone, Edina. Sorry. Have they taken anything? I’ll alert the Neighbourhood Watch coordinator if you like? Mrs Brown, it is. Lives a couple of streets over in number thirty-seven. If you want to give me your number I could pass it over?’
Scribbling it down, she handed over the slip of paper and replied, ‘Thanks, Adam. No, they didn’t take anything, I don’t even know how they got in, to be honest.’
‘Little shits will go anywhere that isn’t locked and take anything not bolted down. I’ll alert Mrs Brown. If you ever need anything, you know where I am.’
Ed nodded and turned towards her bike – Adam was definitely the nosy type, she didn’t think she’d go to him in her hour of need, but it was nice of him to offer his help. Despite the notes, she was glad she lived in such a close-knit street.
24th September, 0840 hours - Darlington University Campus
She stood in the shadows of the trees around the entrance to the campus. Autumn had just started taking hold, and the leaves were turning, their edges now showing an orange hue. Not that she had time to enjoy the sight.
She was too busy watching for them.
The popular group who everyone wanted to be part of and nobody actually liked.
She saw the bright red Ford Focus pull into the car park, driven by the horrid Janelle Spencer. She was pretty much the ring leader. What she said went and the others followed her like lost puppies. It was not hard to explain why she hated Janelle and her friends so much. Years of physical and mental abuse from all of them had given her no choice.
Not for much longer though.
She had plans in place to make them pay.
She frowned, pulling back into the shadows as she recalled one particular incident, and her cheeks flushed red, more with anger than embarrassment. She'd been about twelve at the time. Janelle had alerted the whole class to the fact that she didn't have any pants on under her tights – staring and pointing in the middle of the changing rooms. She'd literally wanted the ground to open up and swallow her, and the teacher had done nothing to help. While she'd been climbing the rope in gym class, Janelle had snuck back into the changing room and ripped her tights, meaning she had to go commando for the rest of the day. The boys had taken great pleasure in lifting her skirt at every opportunity and flashing her bits and bobs to the world, then screaming with laughter as horrified tears had streamed down her face.
She'd gone home after school that day and sobbed to her mum, begged her for trousers instead of a skirt, refusing to go back to school until she had them. It took a few days, but her mum finally came home with some plain trousers for her to wear to school. She didn't know here her mum had got them, she didn't care. It meant they couldn't degrade her anymore. Well not in that way anyway.
She had good reason to hate that bitch.
Once Janelle and her friends had walked through the main doors into the uni, she pulled herself out from the tree line and started walking down.
24th September, 0955 hours - Darlington University Campus
'Guess what I've got,' said Janelle as she breezed her way into the library's open study area. The smug smile on her face gave the game away, though, and her friends gave each other high fives, ignoring the chastising look from the librarian who stood nearby stocking shelves.
'Did you manage to get a study room sorted?' asked Glen Peacock, waggling his eyebrows up and down comically.
'Idiot. Yes, we've got a room. A certain someone decided to share. We need to be in first though,' replied Janelle, smirking.
'Let’s go then.'
They all gathered their bags and stood, following Janell
e along the aisles and onto the main section of the second floor where the private study rooms were situated.
Satisfied it was empty, they all entered, dumped their bags down and sat, waiting expectantly.
Janelle reached into her bag and brought out a small, clear plastic bag with a number of pills inside. The pills were round with an embossed superman symbol on them. With a smile, she handed one to each of the people in the room. She swallowed hers with a sip of water. Sitting back, she waited for the effects to take place. She felt her heart start thumping in her chest, and a warm tingle spread its way down her spine. Her mind burst to life and she was instantly more awake and alert. This was why they all did it. It helped the day go quicker, gave them more focus in lectures, albeit with the occasional fit of giggles.
Whatever the downsides were to ecstasy, Janelle didn't care. She loved the feeling that being high provided. They took it in turns picking up the drugs - it had happened it was her turn today. She'd stopped by Andy's house on her way in that morning. Picked up the ecstasy, and a little something extra that the others didn't need to know about. It was always good to have a little secret. She was sure they all did it too.
She glanced round as the door pushed open, the stricken face of Heather Blaze staring in through the gap. It was time for some fun.
'Well, well, look who it is. One of the little goth bitches. What do you want?'
Surprisingly, the girl held her ground. 'I've got the room booked for ten.' Her eyes flashed with a mixture of hatred and fear.
'Don't think so. We're using it. Now run the fuck along to your little coven and mix up your stupid spells.'
'We're not witches, it's not a coven,' countered the girl, still standing her ground.
Ignoring her comments, Janelle grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it hard, smiling with satisfaction as it hit the girl’s fingers with force and bounced backwards as she cried out in pain.
Watch You Burn Page 1