Scorched Heart (The Firebrand Series Book 4)

by Helen Harper

  ‘What else did he say? If you can remember the exact words he used…’

  ‘I can remember.’ There was a touch of defiance in Chloe’s tone, and I was surprised at how relieved I felt upon hearing it. She wasn’t cowed, not by a long shot. ‘He said that she would rue the fucking day she’d dared to return from the dead.’

  A single shot of pure ice ran all the way from my neck to the base of my spine.

  ‘Did he sound like he was talking to himself?’ Boateng asked, while I clenched and unclenched my fists and tried to remember to breathe. ‘Or was he talking to someone else?’

  Chloe tilted up her chin and met his eyes. ‘I didn’t see anyone else,’ she said. ‘I only saw the bear. And there was only one voice.’ She dropped to a whisper. ‘But I think there were two of them.’

  Boateng and I walked in grim silence towards the cottage with several police officers following behind us. It wasn’t until we reached the gate of the cottage that he turned to me. ‘Does she know about you? About what you can … do?’

  My response was swift. ‘No, sir.’

  Boateng ran a hand over his head. ‘So you were right. Our killer is taking it personally that he strangled you and you came back to life.’

  ‘It appears that way.’ A sombre satisfaction settled in my chest at the thought that I’d pissed off the bastard. He’d succeeded in murdering Patrick Lacey and Julie Mackintosh, but he’d made a serious error of judgement when he targeted me.

  ‘He knows you’re a supe,’ Boateng said.

  ‘He does.’

  ‘He might not be working alone.’

  ‘He might not be.’

  ‘And it sounds like he’s a supe himself, despite what we thought earlier.’

  ‘Indeed.’ I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. ‘But what kind of supe is yet to be determined. One of my colleagues emailed me a file with a list of supernatural beings that might fit the profile of our killer.’ I paused. ‘Or killers. I’ve not looked through it yet. I was sure that he was human, so I didn’t consider it a priority.’

  ‘It’s a priority now.’

  Yes. It was. ‘I’ll check the file as soon as I get back to my laptop.’

  Boateng paused for a beat before speaking again. ‘You could be in grave danger, Emma.’

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  His expression was dubious. ‘There can be worse things than death, you know.’

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot. ‘I’ll be careful.’ I drew in a breath and held it for a moment. ‘It could be a good thing if he’s targeting me. It’ll keep him away from anyone else.’

  Boateng’s mouth flattened. ‘Mmm.’

  A police van appeared from the other end of the road. The road here was so narrow that the hedges on either side skimmed its sides. I glanced through the windscreen, mildly amused that Barry and Larry appeared to be sucking in their stomachs and wincing at the constricted approach.

  When they pulled up alongside us and wound down the window, Barry popped his head out. ‘I hate…’

  ‘…country lanes,’ Larry finished. They grinned at each other for a moment before sobering up as they gazed at the cottage beyond the hedge. ‘What are we expecting to find here?’

  Hopefully no more dead bodies. I shuddered. ‘We think our killer was here.’ I didn’t want to mention anything to do with supernatural bears; it would be better if they approached the scene cold so they could keep an open mind.

  I considered telling them that there might be two killers, and decided against that too. I wanted Barry and Larry to come to their own conclusions. None of the evidence so far had pointed towards two murderers.

  Fortunately, Boateng appeared to agree with me. ‘We’ll suit up and check the area to make sure it’s safe and secure,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll give you free rein. Anything you find could be useful.’

  Both men nodded.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Uh, I’ve been here a couple of times over the past few days. It’s likely that you’ll come across evidence of my presence both inside and outside the cottage.’

  Boateng gave me a sharp look, although he didn’t say anything.

  ‘Noted,’ Barry said with a quick smile. ‘We’ll take samples from you so we don’t get mixed up. In the meantime, you still need to follow precautions. We’ve got disposable suits and booties in the back.’

  While he retrieved the gear, I sent a quick text message to Lukas to let him know that I was delayed but that I’d return soon. I didn’t want to call if he was sleeping, but I was growing anxious about how he was doing. It was my fault he was injured; if his wounds were serious, I’d never forgive myself.

  When he didn’t reply immediately, I pulled a face. Then I spotted PC Rothsay hovering at the back of the assembled police officers and hailed him.

  He gave me a boyish grin, clearly delighted to be singled out. ‘What’s going on? I only just got here and heard something had happened.’ His eyes were wide and he was breathing heavily, either because of excitement or because he’d run all the way here. ‘What’s happened? What can I do?’ He thrust a takeaway coffee at me. ‘And would you like a coffee while you work?’

  I shook my head, indicating that he should keep the coffee for himself. ‘I need to ask you a big favour,’ I said to him. ‘Lord Horvath is at the Bird and Bush. It would be really helpful if you could nip over there and check that he’s alright. He’s, er, not feeling very well.’

  Barry appeared in front of me and passed over a bundle of disposable clothing. I thanked him as I watched Rothsay’s face fall. ‘But he’s a vampire.’

  ‘He’s perfectly safe,’ I said. ‘He’s not a monster. I’m worried about him, that’s all. I have to stay here, but I’d really appreciate it if you could make sure he’s okay.’

  Rothsay glanced over my head and towards the cottage. ‘But…’

  ‘I doubt you’ll miss any of the action here, Robert,’ Boateng said drily. ‘Forensic examination isn’t exactly a thrilling process. Help DC Bellamy out. It won’t take long.’

  Rothsay’s shoulders dropped and I felt a flash of guilt. ‘Fine,’ he muttered. He turned round and trotted off in the opposite direction.

  ‘You did me a favour there,’ Boateng said, pulling a white suit over his clothes. ‘Rothsay is as keen as mustard but he’s a little over enthusiastic and tends to get in the way.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Is that why you keep sending him to babysit me?’

  ‘Two birds,’ Boateng said, ‘one stone.’

  There was a sudden loud caw from over our heads. I stiffened and glanced up. That damned crow. Again.

  ‘Besides,’ Boateng continued, ‘it’ll do him good to come face to face with a vampire and realise that they’re not the evil beings he thinks they are.’

  ‘You’re quite enlightened compared to a lot of police detectives I meet,’ I commented.

  Boateng shrugged. ‘I worked with the Met for a while when I was younger. The supes were more civilised, law-abiding and helpful than a lot of people I came across.’ He gave me a brief smile, and I had the feeling that he was including me in that statement.

  I smiled back, then hastily pulled on my own disposable suit. Unfortunately, if Chloe was right about the bear she’d seen, we might be about to disprove Boateng’s notion.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It didn’t take long to establish that whoever or whatever had tried to attack Chloe was long gone. Apart from ourselves, the only movement in the cottage garden came from the buzzing insects and Vel, whose beady corvid eyes watched us with interest.

  I did my best to ignore the crow and followed Boateng to the back of the building, taking care not to tread on anything that might be evidence. This time there were no obvious footprints, but that didn’t mean there weren’t clues for the forensic team to find.

  I thought again about the possibility that there were two killers rather than one. What if one was a supe in the form of a bear and one was human?


  ‘So,’ Boateng said, ‘according to Chloe, she entered through the gate. She tried the door but the padlock barred her way, so she came round here looking for a window.’

  I spotted the shards of green glass scattered on the ground, half hidden by the overgrown weeds. They looked as if they’d come from an old beer bottle, perhaps several of them. I pointed them out to Boateng and he nodded.

  ‘Her story is holding up so far.’ He stopped walking and angled his head towards the cottage roof. ‘Look,’ he said grimly.

  I followed his gaze. Clinging to the edge of one of the roof tiles was a small scrap of pink fabric that looked to be the same material as Chloe’s T-shirt. We exchanged glances.

  ‘We’ll comb this entire area,’ Larry said, ‘but there’s a lot of rubbish that’s been left by other visitors. It might take us a while to establish if there’s any trace of our killer. There’s only a few more hours of daylight, but we’ll get as much done today as we can.’

  ‘Do you want the interior of the cottage checked as well?’ Barry enquired.

  ‘We need to be thorough. We don’t have many leads and this is currently a live scene.’ Boateng glanced at me. ‘Interesting that the killer came here in particular.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ I shuffled my feet. ‘My friend Laura was inside the cottage earlier. She must have attached the new padlock and bolt to the front door. I’ll give her a call and see if she left a spare key anywhere.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll need her fingerprints and hair samples, so we can discount her as well as you.’

  I licked my lips. ‘She works in pathology, and she was taking samples from inside the cottage for further study. I’m sure she was careful, sir.’

  ‘I should ask why she was taking samples,’ Boateng said. ‘But to be honest, I’d rather not know.’

  I shrugged awkwardly and moved away while I made the call. The phone rang several times before Laura answered. She sounded anxious. ‘What’s happened, Emma? You’ve not died again, have you?’

  ‘Nope. I’ve been alive for almost a whole forty-eight hours. Go me.’

  ‘That’s not funny.’

  No, it wasn’t – but Laura usually had more of a breezy sense of humour about these things. ‘I won’t keep you long,’ I said hastily. ‘I’m sure you’ve got your hands full in Maidstone with the post-mortem. I just wanted to ask if you left a spare key to the cottage anywhere.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  I watched Barry and Larry directing the other officers and forensic assistants. They might look like a crime-busting duo from a 1980s’ cop show but they certainly knew what they were doing.

  ‘Did you leave a key for the new lock and bolt you put on the door to my parents’ cottage?’

  There was a beat of silence. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with a new lock. I probably could have arranged one if I’d had time. I’m sorry, Emma, it wasn’t me.’

  I took a step backwards and looked at the cottage door. The new padlock glinted in the late-afternoon sun. If Laura hadn’t put the lock on then who had? A tremor of trepidation flickered in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘We don’t have a key for that lock,’ I called over to Boateng.

  ‘We’ll use bolt cutters,’ he called back.

  I swallowed and nodded. One of the officers rummaged around in a bag and pulled out a hefty-looking tool.

  ‘Listen, Emma,’ Laura said. ‘I’ve almost finished the post-mortem here. There are a few things you should know.’ She didn’t sound upbeat. Far from it.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We’ve been comparing Julie Mackintosh’s wounds to those on Patrick Lacey. They’re virtually identical – they were definitely made by the same attacker.’

  That was hardly a surprise. It did make the theory of two killers seem less likely, however, so that was something to be thankful about. I nodded, distracted by the officer striding over to the cottage door with the bolt cutter in his hand.

  ‘Their flesh and skin was ripped in the same manner, and they have the same curious lack of blood. Initially some sort of serrated knife was suspected, but I’ve examined both bodies and I’m convinced that neither victim was attacked with a weapon.’ She paused. ‘Unless you count teeth as a weapon. The wounds are remarkably similar to those made by wild animals.’

  ‘You’re saying that they were probably killed by a supe,’ I said. My voice was flat but, given what Chloe had described, Laura’s findings weren’t a revelation. Not now.

  ‘It looks that way. I’ve found traces of saliva. I’m running DNA testing now and I’ve requested the results be fast tracked but you know what it’s like. It could be a whole day before we get any results.’

  Yeah, I knew. This wasn’t Hollywood. No matter how much pressure was put on laboratories, it wasn’t easy to get answers quickly.

  ‘There’s more,’ Laura said.

  The anxious churn in my stomach flickered back to life. The police officer had succeeded in snapping the padlock on the cottage door. The door creaked open and he stood back so Larry could enter.

  ‘I had a bit of time during my break to look through some of the files on your parents’ murder. The investigation done on their bodies was thorough. Although the murder weapon was never discovered, I would agree that it was probably some kind of kitchen knife. The thing is, Emma, that although you were alive to all intents and purposes, you were examined as well. The evidence taken from you didn’t match up with the other findings.’

  I didn’t move. ‘Okay.’

  ‘First of all, there’s the sulphur residue from your resurrection. It was decided that Samuel Beswick tried to burn down the cottage and failed. The forensic team at the time commented on the amount of residue on your skin, but couldn’t explain why there was so much of it.’

  They couldn’t possibly have imagined the truth. ‘There’s more, isn’t there?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Laura took a deep breath. ‘Saliva was found on your skin, too.’

  I frowned. Larry reappeared at the cottage door, framed in the dimming light, holding something in his gloved hands. I squinted at it. It looked like a bunch of papers bound in a file. I stared harder. It looked familiar.

  ‘Various tests were done on the saliva at the time,’ Laura told me. ‘It didn’t come from you or from your parents. And it wasn’t a match for Samuel Beswick, either.’

  Larry’s head turned towards me. His face was pale. When he caught me looking at him, he quickly turned away as if he were afraid to meet my eyes.

  ‘Emma,’ Laura said, ‘I might have made a mistake. This might be a case of cross-contamination, and the tests that I’ve been able to run are only basic. I’m going from the report written twenty-five years ago. I can’t do a full DNA work-up. That has to be completed by the lab.’

  ‘Laura,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you’ve found.’

  I looked again at the wad of papers in Larry’s hands. Something was written on the front of the file in large, clumsy letters. R.I… I tilted my head to get a better look.

  She sighed. ‘The initial markers detected in the saliva found on Patrick Lacey and Julie Mackintosh are identical to the markers in the saliva that was found on your skin when you were five years old.’

  Blood thudded dully in my ears. I stared at the words written on the papers. R.I.P. E.B.

  Rest In Peace Emma Bellamy.

  ‘Oh,’ I whispered. Oh.

  ‘I found the files in the kitchen,’ Larry said. ‘I’ve seen enough of these in my time to know that they’re ours.’

  ‘We’ve checked the serial number.’ Boateng’s arms were folded tightly across his chest. ‘It matches the file on Patrick Lacey’s murder that I gave to you.’

  ‘The one that was stolen from my room at the Bird and Bush.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Barry’s moustache quivered. ‘We’ll need to do tests to be sure, but the writing on the front appears to have been done with blood.’

  I met Boateng’s eyes. ‘What’s the bet that the blood is
a match for either Julie Mackintosh or Patrick Lacey?’ I said grimly.

  He didn’t blink. ‘Why? If we assume that EB stands for Emma Bellamy, then why go to this trouble? Why target you? Why leave the file here, of all places?’

  ‘Because the same person who killed my parents twenty-five years ago killed Patrick and Julie as well.’

  Boateng shook his head. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Of course it is, sir.’

  ‘Emma, Samuel Beswick killed your parents. And he’s still locked away at HMP Galloway.’

  ‘Actually,’ I said distantly, ‘he’s not. He’s in hospital, in intensive care. He didn’t kill my parents. He was convicted of their murder but he’s innocent.’

  Larry, Barry and Boateng all stared at me. It was Larry who spoke first. ‘In the kitchen, there’s a large scorch mark. It’s almost exactly the same as the one we found in your room at the Bird and Bush.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  I lifted up my head, daring Harris Boateng to challenge me. ‘New evidence has come to light about what happened.’ I pointed to myself indicating that I was that damned evidence. ‘And it changes everything.’

  ‘Emma, I understand that emotions are running high and that this must be traumatic for you—’ Boateng began. Then his voice faltered.

  A moment later, a familiar arm curled round my waist and pulled me close. I briefly closed my eyes. Thank goodness. ‘Good evening,’ Lukas said.

  Barry and Larry stepped back in perfectly synchronised movements, but Lukas continued to smile pleasantly. He was still pale but he was clearly much better. ‘I am Lord Lukas Horvath.’ He turned to me and his black eyes softened. ‘I was told I might find you here.’ His grip around my waist tightened for a moment then he released me.

  DCI Boateng recovered the fastest. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you, Lord Horvath.’ He reached out to shake Lukas’s hand and Barry and Larry stared in horror. Barry’s eyes went to Lukas’s fangs, while Larry turned his head to check my neck. I shouldn’t have been disappointed in their reactions but I was.