by Tana Collins
Dark is the Day
Inspector Jim Carruthers Book 4
Tana Collins
Contents
Also By Tana Collins
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
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
A note from the publisher
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Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2019 Tana Collins
The right of Tana Collins 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 2019 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
Also By Tana Collins
The Inspector Jim Carruthers Series
Robbing The Dead
Care To Die
Mark Of The Devil
This book is dedicated to Allison (Ally) Brady.
Prologue
Tuesday: about 3pm
Hearing footsteps behind her, she clutches her canvas bag tighter to her chest. As she picks up her pace she feels the moisture of sweat on her hands and tastes it on her top lip. A sudden sense of claustrophobia comes over her in this dark, cobbled, medieval alley with its high stone walls. The light barely penetrates here and everything is in shadow. Her heart hammers in her chest. It is almost painful.
Greyfriar’s Wynd is empty except for her and the person behind her. She is wearing red wedge sandals but can still hear the other person’s footfall, measured and deliberate. All her senses are on alert. Why did she take this short cut? She descends three worn steps quickly. She always takes this short cut from the library, that’s why, and nothing has ever happened before. But she’s never been followed before. And with the recent news of that girl being attacked, what is she thinking?
She doesn’t dare turn round. She can’t. She stops abruptly and the footsteps behind her stop. Hairs prick up on the back of her neck. She hears a strange tuneless whistling. She feels a sudden shiver. Panic threatens to overwhelm her. She tries to scream but can’t. She can’t turn back, there’s nowhere to hide, so the only option is to keep going forward. Thank God, she’s not wearing heels, although the wedge sandals are bad enough on cobbles.
A sudden noise behind her. The sound of heavy shoes. Oh my God. The man is running. She starts to run too, cursing as her tight denim skirt impedes her progress. Why does she think it’s a man? He’s getting closer. He’s closing the gap quickly. She can hear his breathing, smell his sweat. She’s a fast runner, but not in this skirt. Another couple of seconds and she knows she’s not going to be able to outrun him. A large hand grabs her shoulder, swings her round. Her shoulder bag slips to the ground, the contents spilling out.
It is then that she sees the mask and the knife.
Chapter 1
An eerie artificial light bathed the alley. The lighting system was already set up and the scene of crime officers had cordoned off the entrance and exit. Dr Mackie knelt by the body in the ancient close. A strobe flash signalled another photograph from Liu, the diminutive Chinese photographer.
Mackie tilted his head so he was looking up at Carruthers. ‘It’s a nasty one, Jim.’
DI Jim Carruthers, all kitted out in his paper overalls, ducked under the tape and entered the close. Dark-haired DS Andrea Fletcher followed closely behind him.
Mackie tried to straighten up. Carruthers looked at his shock of white hair and worn face and wondered fleetingly how long the pathologist would keep going. He must be getting close to retirement age.
‘She’s been slashed across the face, laddie. It’s no’ pretty. My estimate is that she’s only been dead less than an hour.’
‘So about three in the afternoon then.’ Although Carruthers felt butterflies in his stomach his professionalism kicked in. ‘And the perpetrator had some kind of knife or sharp implement. Any puncture wounds elsewhere?’ He leant into the slim body lying still in its last repose.
‘Not that I can see. I’ll start the PM as soon as it’s possible.’ Mackie’s voice sounded husky to Carruthers – was that emotion clouding his voice, or did he have a head cold? The detective knew Mackie hated violence, especially violence against women.
‘However, look at this.’ Mackie leant over the corpse of the young woman, gesturing at the neck. ‘We may have our cause of death.’
Carruthers could see bluish marks on the neck and what looked like fingerprints. ‘Manual strangulation?’ He turned to Fletcher. ‘We need to find out who she is.’ He gazed back at the slim figure and blonde hair of the dead woman.
‘Can you tell me anything with any certainty?’ asked Carruthers.
‘All I can tell you at the moment is that she didn’t take her own life.’ Mackie’s standard response to a suspicious death, thought Carruthers.
‘Reckon she might be a student. She’s about that age,’ said Fletcher. ‘Any ID on her?’
Fletcher nodded her thanks to a scene of crime officer, or SOCO, who offered her the bagged possessions. Carefully, Fletcher pulled a pair of latex gloves on. She opened the clear plastic bag and rifled through. ‘Looks like our victim’s name may be Rachel Abbie. There’s a jotter with that name on it on the front. But no student ID, which is unusual, and no purse or bank cards.’ She gave Jim the bagged possessions. ‘There’s also a library book in here.’ It was a slim paperback. She looked at it. ‘David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.’
Carruthers raised his eyebrow. ‘David Hume? As in Scottish Philosopher?’
Fletcher looked at the blurb on the back of the book. ‘The one and same. Maybe our victim’s a philosophy student?’
He frowned. ‘Anything with her address on it?’
Fletcher shook her head.
‘Get over to the philosophy department. The David Hume book is our only lead. See if they have a student by the name of Rachel Abbie.’
He watched the younger Fletcher shiver. Despite the fact Scotland was in the throes of spring it was a cold, windy day. What was the expression people used? ‘‘Ne’er cast a cloot, till May be oot.’’ He smiled as he thought of the translation he’d have to give his English DS. “Don’t throw away your clothes until May is over”. There’d been an unexpected frost that morning. A reminder that winter wasn’t long behind them.
‘Nobody saw or heard anything apparently, which in itself is strange.’ He was thinking that this was a busy university town in the East of Scotland. The area was also popular with golfers and tourists. And the local RAF base was just six
miles down the road in Edenside.
‘Who found the body?’
‘A couple of male students walking back from the Earl of Fife.’
One of the better frequented student pubs in the centre of town. ‘Okay, don’t let them leave without taking a statement from them.’ He asked hopefully, ‘Do either of them know the deceased?’
Fletcher shook her head. She was very quiet, Carruthers noticed. Unusually so.
‘Pity. Was worth a long shot.’
He’d noticed Fletcher’s mood had plummeted the last couple of weeks. Wondered what was wrong. He thought she’d managed to put her relationship breakup with Mark behind her. But what about her miscarriage? How could she put that behind her?
His eyes trailed back to the prostrate figure of the young woman lying on the ground. What was she? Eighteen or nineteen? Too young to have seen much of life. Not long out of childhood herself; on the verge of adulthood. Once again, he silently cursed the fact that someone could take another human being’s life. He added her to the growing list of the dead who would haunt his dreams.
Fletcher wrapped her coat protectively around herself and walked the ten minutes to the philosophy department through the ancient streets of Castletown. She could smell the fresh sea air in her nostrils and hear the cry of gulls as she crossed the cobbled street by the Quad. She looked up at the turreted gothic building against its backdrop of the North Sea as she walked across the tarmacked road. It wouldn’t look out of place as Hogwarts on a film set. She ran up the worn stone steps and through the open blue door. Fishing in her handbag she brought out her mobile, glanced at it to see there were no new messages and slipped it back in the bag.
A few minutes later she was up two flights of steps and in the secretary’s office. As the middle-aged woman with the silver coiffured hair busied herself going through the student files, Fletcher stared beyond her out through the second-floor window at the sparkling blue sea. A thunderous noise signalled two low-flying Tornados from nearby RAF Edenside.
‘Rachel Abbie, you say? Yes, here it is. I thought she sounded familiar. We do have a second-year student by that name. If you hold on, I’ll just get her term-time address.’ The secretary tapped at her computer with her short, manicured nails, opened her desk drawer, brought out a sheet of paper and wrote the address down for Fletcher.
The door opened and a young woman with shiny black hair came in, carrying a black shoulder bag. She looked ready for a night on the town in a little red dress. Fletcher wondered if she’d come to work looking like that or if she’d made a quick change in the toilets. It looked as if she’d just brushed her hair and put on a slick of red lipstick.
‘Can I get off? I don’t want to keep Dave waiting.’
The secretary checked her watch. ‘Go on then. It’s nearly five anyway – see you tomorrow,’ she added as an afterthought as the woman closed the door.
She rolled her eyes at Fletcher. ‘Temps.’
‘Do you have an out-of-term address for her too? Rachel Abbie?’
The secretary nodded. ‘Pateley Hall, Pateley Bridge, Nidderdale, North Yorkshire.’ She scribbled that down for Fletcher too.
‘You wouldn’t have a photograph of her, would you?’ Fletcher asked hopefully.
The secretary pulled a face. ‘I’m afraid not. And to be honest I wouldn’t know what she looks like. They’re mostly just a sea of faces to me. I don’t get to have much personal contact with the students on an individual basis. Can I ask what this is about?’
‘Just making some enquiries,’ said Fletcher, privately wondering if any woman was safe in Castletown at the moment given recent events. This was the second attack in days. She wondered where the temp was heading. Wherever she was going she hoped she’d take care. ‘Can you tell me anything else about her?’
Two more Tornados flew low overhead, drowning out the secretary’s answer. The woman stood up and walked over to the window. ‘No, like I said, I don’t know her personally.’ She pulled on the sash window and shut it. ‘I’m very sensitive to noise. Sometimes you can’t hear yourself think with those jets. I once knew a student who had to ask for ear plugs during her exam in this building. I did feel for her. Even more sensitive to noise than me, poor dear, although I’m sure stress played a part.’
‘Did the student pass the exam?’
‘What? Oh yes. With flying colours.’ Smiling, she turned and faced Fletcher. ‘You could ask her supervisor, Professor Mairi Beattie. She will have had more personal contact with her, although she’s not in the department at the moment. I believe she’s coming back later. She sometimes stays late marking students’ papers.’
‘Mairi?’ asked Fletcher, frowning. ‘Is Beattie her maiden name?’
‘Why yes. I believe she’s recently returned to it. Do you know her?’ said the secretary.
Finding she was holding her breath, Fletcher asked, ‘Just out of interest, what was her married name?’
‘Carruthers.’
Mairi Carruthers. Oh shit. Jim’s ex-wife.
Chapter 2
DS Andrea Fletcher leant over DI Jim Carruthers’ desk. He looked up at her, and taking his glasses off, put them on his prematurely greying head. He rubbed his face with his hands. ‘How did you get on at the philosophy department?’
Fletcher read from her little black notebook. ‘There is a Rachel Abbie registered. I managed to get her term-time address. It’s over at Strathburn Halls. But there was nobody home when I went round. I put a note through the door so I’m hoping someone will ring soon. I’ve also been given a home address for her. It’s in a village in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire, called Pateley Bridge. I’ve been in touch with the control room at Bilston and they’re going to get hold of the local constabulary and dispatch someone to the property.’
An image came into Fletcher’s head of the picturesque market town in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales. She’d seen it recently in a magazine that celebrated England’s natural beauty. There’d been an article in the magazine about a Dark Skies Festival in North Yorkshire that she’d been interested in. She frowned, wondering what she’d done with the magazine. She wanted to pass it on to Carruthers. With his love of the outdoors she could imagine a Dark Skies Festival would be right up his street.
‘Good work.’ Carruthers picked up his polystyrene cup and drained the remains of his cold tea. She knew he was trying to drink less coffee these days. He pulled a face. She also knew he wasn’t much of a tea drinker. ‘Andie, I want you to get Dougie to pull all the files on crimes involving similar MO in Scotland in the last few years and get on to the CCTV, will you? See if we can pick anything up of her last movements.’
She nodded, privately wondering if it wasn’t a massive waste of time to try to pull all the files on previous similar crimes. Her gut instinct told her that they had no bearing on recent events. But then it was nothing more than a gut feeling and, in the end, nothing beat good old-fashioned police work.
With no leads or motive she wasn’t going to voice her thoughts to her DI. They both knew they were currently clutching at straws.
Her thoughts turned to Dougie Harris. That man usually needed a rocket up his backside to get him motivated to do any proper work. However, this year she’d seen a more conscientious side to him, although sadly it hadn’t been work-related. He’d recently returned from taking some leave to look after his sick, disabled wife.
As for the CCTV, they’d found nothing that had been of any help in the search to catch the attacker of Serena Davis, the first victim. Fletcher couldn’t make up her mind whether she’d prefer it to be the same attacker or not. Of course, one person would be easier to catch, in theory, than two, but then a single perpetrator of these crimes meant it was more likely to be a serial attacker. She sighed. If the situation had been different and Serena Davis had died they could now be searching for the killer of two women, not one. They certainly didn’t want a serial killer.
As if to voice her thoughts Carruthers said, ‘At least the last
one’s still alive. Two girls in five days. What do you think the motive is?’
Fletcher shook her head, her eyes dull. ‘Does there have to be one?’
Carruthers placed the empty polystyrene cup back on his desk. ‘Few serious crimes are random. Most are committed by people the victim knows, which is why we need to start the investigation close to home for both women. But it’s interesting. Thankfully, he didn’t rape her. He didn’t rob her. But he did slash her. Just like the first one.’
Fletcher picked up the photograph that had been lying on Carruthers’ desk of the most recent victim. ‘Except it looks like he finally killed Rachel Abbie by strangulation, if that’s who our victim is.’
She listened to Carruthers as he continued to speak. ‘He slashed her right across her face. Then he throttled her. Why slash and then throttle?’
Fletcher sighed. ‘This act was committed by someone who hates pretty women? Perhaps someone who just hates women in general? There’s enough of them about. It’s a very intimate attack without being sexual. To slash someone across the face you physically need to get close enough to them.’
‘And using a knife on a victim… there’s not that disassociation between victim and perpetrator you get with a gun. On the other hand, guns aren’t as easy to get hold of as knives.’