by Kerry Watts
Her Secret Past
A completely gripping and heart-stopping crime thriller
Kerry Watts
Books by Kerry Watts
Detective Jessie Blake Series
Heartlands
Her Missing Child
Her Secret Past
AVAILABLE IN AUDIO
Heartlands (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
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
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
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Epilogue
Hear More from Kerry
Books by Kerry Watts
A Letter From Kerry
Heartlands
Her Missing Child
Acknowledgements
For Mark, Hannah and Flynn. Thank you for your unwavering support.
Prologue
Portree, Isle of Skye – Boxing Day 1990
Seeing her grandmother’s wrists bound didn’t fill Alice with the repulsion it should. Any normal fourteen-year-old girl from their small island community would be sickened by that scene of carnage. Or the tape fixed tight across the mouth of the only mother figure Alice had ever known. That sharp tongue would never scold Alice again. She would never again have to hear her grandmother’s disappointment. Instead it excited and scared her in equal measure. She and David had talked about this day for so long. It hardly seemed real now that they were carrying out their plan. The plan that would free them. Free them from judgement.
Mary Connor whimpered. Her back was pressed hard against the range, which was still warm from Christmas lunch. The 75-year-old’s body slumped forward against the leg of the long pine farmhouse table. Alice smiled, her grandfather’s drying blood cracking on her cheek. She ran her fingers through her long, mousey hair peppered crimson from the cast-off spray each time the hammer had connected with Peter Connor’s skull. Mary Connor stared up from the floor, her hands still bound behind her. Her jaw visibly broken and hanging. Her huge brown eyes begged David for mercy then stretched wide open before the hammer was struck for the last time with a blood-curdling crunch across her skull.
Then came the silence. The only sound, barely audible, was that of David’s gasps as he began to catch his breath after the exertion of the attack. It had taken them just twenty minutes to achieve their goal. They would tell police they found them dead. Suggest it was a robbery gone wrong. The Connors were a wealthy couple. Make it look like burglars had been looking for something: jewellery, money, antiques. The place was full of expensive items. It wouldn’t be difficult to convince people the Connors were a good target.
Alice stared at David, who at nineteen was five years older than her. He didn’t appear fazed by what they had just done. He sniffed then wiped the back of his bloody hand across his cheek, smearing a cherry-red trail over his skin. Alice glanced from the corner of her eye to where her grandfather’s lifeless body lay, his face spattered with his own blood. Her heart raced. Butterflies danced in her stomach – the way they did when David kissed her. She allowed her head to turn and stare, her eyes to drift beyond the motionless figure to the bloody footprints they had tracked all over her grandmother’s immaculate wood floor. Mary Connor would not be pleased at the state of it. But it didn’t have to come to this. Sure, David was a bit older than Alice but they were in love. He might be a bit rough around the edges but he truly cared for her. She’d pleaded when the couple tried to stop her from seeing him. They never understood and now they would never have to.
‘Toss me that towel.’ David’s words pulled Alice out of her trance. She loved him.
‘What? Yes, sure.’ She reached out to retrieve the faded blue hand towel from the back of the kitchen door. The one laid aside for drying the family’s three-year-old black cocker spaniel.
‘Where’s Daisy?’ Alice tossed him the towel then panicked and spun around in a circle when she couldn’t see her. She exhaled in relief when she eventually spotted the dog scratching at the back door to come inside. ‘There you are.’
As soon as Alice opened the door Daisy shot inside and began barking.
‘Shut her up!’ David roared. ‘The neighbours will hear her.’
Alice reached for her dog but Daisy’s lips snapped back and she growled then sunk her teeth into David’s shin.
‘Daisy!’ Alice tried to scold her.
‘Argh, get off me you little…’ He raised the hammer until Alice slammed her shoulder into him and got between them before he could smash it over the young dog’s head.
‘What are you doing? No!’ Alice screamed. ‘She’s just trying to protect me.’
‘Get her off me then,’ David yelled again and tried to take her by the scruff of her neck until her face turned and her sharp dagger-like teeth pinched at his wrist. He snapped his hand back and held it close to his body. ‘Get her out of here or I swear to God I’ll—’ He paused and clutched his stinging hand. ‘We don’t have much time to get this place sorted. We need to make it look like a break-in. Like we agreed.’
David wiped as much of the blood and fingerprints from each of the hammers as he could and ran back out to the couple’s large double garage and hung them where Pe
ter Connor kept them neatly lined up in order of size, next to the cabinet clearly labelled with screws, nuts and bolts. He spotted the trail of bloody footprints he’d tracked outside with him and cursed his own stupidity. He should have been more careful of where he stepped. From the other side of the neighbouring field he caught sight of his worst fear. They had heard that damn dog. He spun round on the gravel path and ran back inside to warn Alice. The unseasonably mild December day caused him to sweat despite wearing only a black vest top. Before he could find her, a police car could be seen coming up the long, chipped gravel driveway to the hundred-year-old farmhouse.
‘Alice, where are you? We have to hide.’ David’s voice echoed through the kitchen. ‘Shit, Alice, where the hell are you?’ he spat through gritted teeth. Then he froze, horrified that he couldn’t find her. This was slipping from his control. It wasn’t like this in his head.
‘Mr and Mrs Connor, is everything OK in here?’ One of the local policemen had been sent to check on the elderly couple after reports that screaming had been heard coming from the property by a passing farmer. He pressed open the kitchen door with one finger. ‘Mrs Connor—’ The officer peered round the doorway then dropped to his knees as he radioed for help.
David Law held his breath, a bloody hand over his own mouth, from behind the utility-room door. A shooting pain flooded his temples. He watched through the crack as the officer made a futile search for signs of life in both Mary and Peter Connor. David could feel every pulse of blood speed through his veins, terrified to move an inch.
Unaware of the officer’s arrival Alice returned from upstairs where she had gone to get blankets to cover her grandparents. A brief attack of guilt tugged at her, but they couldn’t stop her happiness now. She was free to be with David. The least she could do was help retain some of their dignity.
Daisy the cocker spaniel bounded down the stairs ahead of her and burst into the kitchen, barking loudly.
‘Daisy, get back here.’ Alice stopped dead when she came face to face with the officer. Her body went cold and she wanted to run. This wasn’t part of the plan. Where was David? What was she supposed to do now? David would know what to do.
The officer could see the blood covering her hair and face and stood to meet her. He was shocked by the sight of the teenager he’d known since she was a baby.
‘Hello, Alice sweetheart, can you tell me what’s happened here?’ His arm trailed downwards to Mary Connor’s body. His eyes glanced behind her before he pulled a dining chair out for her. He reached again for his radio. ‘You come and sit down here. Let’s see if we can sort this out, shall we?’ He patted the back of the chair. ‘Are you OK? Are you hurt?’
Alice froze. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even swallow. She’d never felt so scared. Daisy shot through the half-open utility-room door and growled. David held his finger to his lips and tried to shoo the dog away. The officer moved closer. David held his breath until the door slid open.
‘Come out here where I can see you.’
Alice dropped down onto a chair. It was over. Everything was gone.
1
2019
DC Dylan Logan nodded with a sombre face at DI Jessie Blake when he saw her Fiesta pull up outside the isolated Perthshire farmhouse. The strong winter sunshine glinted off her windscreen, an eerie contrast to the darkness inside the property. Jessie raised a hand to acknowledge him as she parked a little way back from the taped-off area. This wasn’t how either of them had anticipated spending Boxing Day. She thanked the uniformed officer who handed her the blue plastic covers for her boots before heading over to meet Dylan.
‘Merry Christmas,’ Dylan whispered into her ear and nodded gently towards the front door of the farmhouse.
‘Merry Christmas. I bet Shelly’s not best pleased with you having to come out. Today of all days. Katie’s first Christmas too,’ Jessie commented. She wouldn’t blame Dylan’s wife for feeling peeved with him leaving her on Boxing Day with two small children to look after.
She pushed open the front door and moved through to the kitchen, taken aback to see a young, thin, pale lad of no more than twenty sitting eating a turkey sandwich at the table close to the recently deceased body of seventy-year-old Malcolm Angus who was face down in his bowl of porridge, a single gunshot wound in this temple. His grandfather. She turned and spotted Tommy Angus, the dead couple’s son, smoking and trembling on the black leather sofa in the living room opposite. She asked Dylan to keep an eye on the young man at the table, seemingly indifferent to the horrific scene close to him. Dylan acknowledged her request and slowly closed the kitchen door once inside. Jessie crossed the short hallway, which was immaculate apart from the muddy footprints, incongruous in the beautifully kept hundred-year-old traditional farmhouse.
‘Mr Angus, or can I call you Tommy?’ Jessie held up her ID, her lips curling into a gentle smile. ‘My name is Detective Inspector Jessie Blake. It was you that found your parents, is that right?’
Tommy Angus took a long draw on his cigarette, struggling to control his shaking hand before he flicked the ash into an empty mug on the clean pine coffee table and scratched at his head.
‘Yes.’ He coughed to find the words then swallowed back his nerves. ‘I mean, yes, I did then I called the police.’
Tommy’s black hair was greasy and in need of a good cut and it stuck out in several different directions. He carried more weight than he should and a faint whiff of stale sweat wafted in Jessie’s direction. His bloodshot blue eyes conveyed the fact he didn’t take care of himself. Even before this tragic turn of events. Then it hit Jessie. Tommy Angus. She’d gone to school with him. They weren’t friends but he was in her year. He had not aged well. He might have kept the thick hair but he’d gained so much weight Jessie almost didn’t recognise the former school athlete. Hundred-metre sprint champion, if her memory served her correctly. She didn’t think he had recognised her either. Her eyes drifted around the well-kept room. Minimalist. Unusual for a farmhouse. Every surface free from dust and clutter. The only thing out of place was Tommy’s mug, which he continued to flick ash into.
‘Is it OK if I sit?’ Jessie pushed her car keys into her pocket and pointed to the seat next him.
‘What, yes of course.’ He nodded and inhaled another huge draw on the cigarette. ‘I’ve been trying to give up,’ he scoffed.
‘Today’s not the day maybe,’ Jessie mentioned as she lowered herself down opposite him.
‘Aye, I expect not.’ His head of thick hair dropped into his hands. ‘Who would do this? My mum and dad wouldn’t say boo to a goose, for goodness’ sake.’
Tommy’s anguish looked real enough but it was early days.
‘When did you last speak to your parents?’ Jessie asked, her eyes scanning the room for every detail.
Tommy lit another cigarette and took a long drag before answering. ‘This morning.’ He coughed and pulled his close-fitting Scotland rugby shirt further over his belly. ‘I spoke to them at seven o’clock this morning.’ He sniffed and wiped the tear that was gathering at the corner of his eye. ‘I don’t sleep well you see and I knew at least Mum would be up so I called to wish them Merry Christmas. I, er – I didn’t quite manage it yesterday.’ He blushed, causing Jessie’s interest to pique. Why not? she thought. Interesting.
‘How did she seem when you spoke to her? Did she seem worried? Was she anxious about anything?’
‘That’s what’s weird. She was fine. Her usual cheery self. I can’t get my head round this.’ He glanced up at the clock above the stone mantelpiece which read eleven thirty. ‘It’s not even lunchtime…’ His voice quivered then disappeared into barely audible whispers. ‘She said she’d cooked us a roast because we’d missed the turkey yesterday.’ He paused. ‘Now they’re both dead. This – it just can’t be real, can it?’
Mm, interesting. Jessie’s curiosity deepened.
She reached over to the box of tissues she spotted on the coffee table and handed one to Tommy. ‘He
re you go. Listen, the young lad through there, is he your son?’ she murmured and allowed her eyes to wander around the immaculate room again. She stood up and walked over to the large bay window and looked out over the empty open field to the back of the property.
‘Gordon, aye, he’s my son.’
Jessie nodded, unsure what to make of Tommy’s acceptance that his son seemed indifferent to the fact he was sitting next to a dead body, making no comment that he was eating next to his dead grandfather. She would leave that for now. Dylan was through there.
‘Your mum and dad used to raise pedigree sheep, didn’t they? I forget what breed,’ she asked.