Scared to Death (A Detective Kay Hunter novel)

by Rachel Amphlett

  She’d waited for a taxi for another half an hour, but it was no use – the town was simply too busy at that time of night with all the clubs emptying at the same time.

  At that point, she’d had enough of waiting, the rain had started to fall harder, and so she’d begun to walk back towards Bearsted, the clack-clack of her heels soon slowing as her feet grew sore.

  Emma had made it as far as the railway bridge that crossed over the Ashford Road before blisters had started to form on her heels and toes.

  She’d wrenched the shoes from her feet, and now stood with the straps looped over one wrist while she padded barefoot along the pavement, miserable.

  She sniffed, and wiped the back of her hand across her nose.

  She raised her eyes from the pavement at the sound of a vehicle approaching. A dark-coloured car flashed by, its rear lights receding as it rounded the bend, a resounding splash in its wake at the same time as a puddle of water exploded over the footpath in front of her.

  She cowered away from the fresh onslaught.

  ‘Bastard,’ she slurred.

  In her drunken state, her thoughts returned to Melanie, and she shivered.

  She’d never considered Yvonne Richards to be rich, but then what did she know? The woman lived in a suburb of the town a couple of miles from where Emma lived, and she and her husband had driven nondescript cars – nothing too flashy; simply vehicles that were no more than a couple of years old.

  Kidnappings only happened to rich people, didn’t they?

  So, why Melanie?

  Emma shivered again, and tried to walk faster. She pushed aside the thought of what she might be walking in, and instead rubbed her hands together to try to seek some warmth.

  She cursed her own stupidity. Right now, she could have been curled up in her bed, listening to the rain as it pounded onto the thatched roof of the extended cottage.

  She swallowed.

  Vince, her stepfather, was so much better for her than her father had ever been.

  She didn’t mean to get into trouble by sneaking out tonight – she had simply found being around her mother so much these past few days too stifling.

  All she wanted to do now though was get home, sneak back to bed, and wake up to the smell of Vince cooking one of his famous breakfasts.

  Her stomach rumbled at the thought.

  A streetlight wavered above her head, the wind rocking the metal structure from side to side. She held her wrist closer to her face, and tried to read the time on her watch dial. It was now well past one o’clock. There’d be no way she’d get a taxi now.

  She dropped her arm, and tried to pick up her pace. Behind her, the sound of another vehicle approaching caught her attention.

  She checked over her shoulder, and saw the headlights of a van as it splashed through the water covering the road under the railway bridge. She stumbled, and turned her attention back to the pavement in front of her.

  She heard the vehicle slow as it approached. Part of her wanted it to stop, for the driver to offer her a lift. The other part of her began to worry. No one knew where she was.

  Now, the vehicle drew nearer, the driver keeping pace with her. She stepped back from the edge of the kerb, away from the road, glanced to the side, and noticed the passenger window roll down.

  ‘Do you want a lift?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, and turned to walk away.

  ‘Listen,’ said the driver, his voice carrying over the rain, ‘I live just up the road. You’re going to get soaked. Let me give you a lift.’

  It seemed tempting.

  She heard the ratchet sound of the handbrake being applied, and then the driver’s door slammed shut.

  Suddenly, he was standing next to her, towering over her as she moved from foot to foot, undecided as to what to do.

  She glanced from side to side. There was no one else around. No vehicles could be heard. Her eyes met his. She frowned.

  ‘I know you, don’t I?’

  Before she could react, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

  ‘Hello, Emma. I’ve been looking for you.’

  He held what looked like a syringe in his other hand, and then stabbed it into her stomach.

  She cried out in surprise and pain.

  ‘Let me go!’

  A malevolent smile flashed across his face, a split second before his arms wrapped around her and pulled her towards the vehicle.

  She struggled, trying to kick him, but it was no use. He was just too strong. As she fought, she heard the sound of a metal door creak on its hinges, and opened her mouth to scream. His palm across her face silenced her before she could cry out.

  She continued to thrash, but her efforts began to wane as the drug started to course its way through her body.

  The man shoved her, hard, and she fell into the back of the van, striking her head on the metal surface of the floor.

  As darkness enveloped her, and she tried desperately to hang onto the last moments of consciousness, terror engulfed her.

  This was what it would have been like for Melanie.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Kay woke from an uneasy sleep to the sound of a persistent ringing next to her ear.

  Groggy, she opened her eyes.

  Running water reached her ears, and before she flicked back the curtains to see how hard it was raining, the water stopped, and she realised Adam was already up, using the en suite shower.

  The ringing continued.

  She lashed out with her hand, knocked a paperback off the bedside table, and wrapped her fingers around her mobile phone.

  ‘’Lo?’

  ‘Hey, Sis. Thought you were never going to pick up!’

  Kay bit back a groan as her head hit the pillow. ‘Hi, Abby.’

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Kay rubbed at her eye. ‘How sorry?’

  Her sister laughed. ‘It’s six o’clock in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I had a lie-in!’

  A squeal of delight burst down the phone, and Kay wrenched it away from her ear, scowling.

  ‘Charlotte says “morning”, too.’

  Kay bit back a retort. Charlotte was six months old. For all her sister’s assertions about her daughter’s wonderful language skills, she couldn’t help thinking that the baby had probably just dirtied its nappy and was currently celebrating.

  Adam emerged from the en suite in a cloud of steam.

  Her heart leapt at the sight of him, and he grinned, before he proceeded to show off his muscles like a bodybuilder while Kay stuffed the sheet in her mouth and tried not to snort.

  ‘Isn’t she funny?’ said her sister.

  ‘What? Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said her sister, her tone turning business-like. ‘Silas and I were wondering when we’re going to see you? It must be, like, four months since we last caught up?’

  ‘Is it?’

  Kay swallowed, fearful of what was coming.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said her sister. ‘Emily is three next weekend – can you believe it? I’ve got no idea where the time has gone. Mum’s coming over, and there’s going to be some friends of mine with their little ankle-biters.’

  She laughed, a harsh trill that made the skin on Kay’s arms prickle.

  ‘So,’ said Abby. ‘You and Adam need to come. I won’t take “no” for an answer,’ she laughed.

  ‘Um, yeah, Sis?’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t, Kay,’ scolded her sister. ‘Mum said you would do this.’

  Kay sighed. She could visualise her sister’s bottom lip sticking out, the same as it always did when she didn’t get her own way when they were children. She could imagine her stamping her foot, the start of a tantrum only seconds away.

  ‘Abby, I’m in the middle of a murder investigation,’ she said, and concentrated on keeping her voice calm. ‘I can’t promise anything at the moment.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ said Abby, her
voice rising. ‘It’s your niece’s bloody birthday party.’

  The baby started wailing.

  ‘See, you’ve made Charlotte cry now as well.’

  Kay caught Adam staring at her, all the fun gone from his eyes, and shook her head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sis. I’ve got to go. I have to be at work in an hour.’

  She ended the call before she could hear her sister’s response, slid the phone across the bedside table, and closed her eyes.

  She bit her lip, angry at the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ Adam crawled across the bed and curled up next to her, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I know you’re hurting, too.’

  He didn’t reply, and gave her a squeeze instead.

  ‘I just don’t know how to tell them now,’ she said, and gulped another sob back. ‘Christ, here I am – trying to prove to my bosses that I can be a detective inspector, and I can’t even get my shit together around my own mother and sister.’

  Adam released his grip, and then tilted her face towards him. His eyes glistened.

  ‘When it feels like it’s the right time, you tell them,’ he said. He kissed her forehead. ‘Until then, it’s just you and me, kiddo.’

  Kay bit her lip. ‘I don’t remember much after we got to the hospital. When I went to interview Yvonne Richards there, I could remember the smells and the sounds, but that’s all.’

  ‘You know as well as I do that’s your body’s way of dealing with it. You can only remember bits and pieces.’

  ‘What about you? What do you remember?’

  ‘Being utterly powerless as they took you away. It seemed like an age before anyone came to get me. There was nowhere to go. I ended up sitting on the floor in the corridor, just waiting.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘All that keeps going through my head is the thought that I came so close to losing you as well.’

  Kay cupped his face in her hands. ‘But you didn’t.’

  He pulled her to him, and held her tight. ‘Thank god,’ he said, closing his eyes.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you, too.’

  She lay for a moment, the rise and fall of his chest against her face. She snuggled closer. ‘You smell nice.’

  ‘Really? I thought you were getting used to essence of horse poo.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  Eli ignored the muffled noises that echoed off the damp brickwork, and rifled through the contents of the teenage girl’s faux-leather handbag.

  The lurid pink of its surface offended his senses. It was too bright, too cheap, too feminine.

  Guilt threaded its ways through his veins as he worked. His mother had caught him going through her handbag once.

  His mother’s bag had been black, the leather cracked and worn, with a zip that had fought against his efforts to open it, snagging the lining until he’d managed to free it.

  Cigarette odours clung to the inside, a chemical stench that mingled with the stink of stale beer from her nightly visits to the local pub. She’d still been able to leave the house on a regular basis then, unhindered by the ravages that alcohol would take over the next twenty years.

  He still couldn’t say what had made him open the handbag that day. He’d known, if he was caught, the consequences would be dire, but there was something thrilling about finding out more about his mother’s private life.

  For a seven-year-old, it was simply too tempting.

  He’d found a half-used packet of strong breath mints, a crunched up paper tissue, a condom packet, and her purse. Her cigarettes were nowhere to be seen, and that had been when the hairs on the back of his neck had prickled.

  He’d tasted bile on his tongue, but not before he’d placed everything carefully back in the bag, taking care with the zip when he re-sealed it, and turned.

  She was standing, leaning against the frame of the open back door, the fingers of her right hand holding a cigarette between them as if she was leaning against a bar, waiting to be chatted up.

  ‘Find anything, you little shit?’

  Her voice settled somewhere between his heart and his stomach. He shook his head, and lowered his gaze to the floor.

  Her heel crunched the cigarette to death on the back step, the sound reaching his ears as he debated whether to run and face the beating later, or get it over and done with.

  She moved too fast for him to make a decision.

  He lifted his eyes to face her at the same moment her open hand connected with his ear.

  He crashed to the floor, the pain unbearable, but she took no notice. Instead, she hauled him to his feet, and aimed punches at his face and shoulders. He held up his hands in defence, and tried to block the hands that moved too fast for him to counter. The edges of his sight began to darken, and he sank to the floor, waves of nausea consuming him.

  She’d given up then, and aimed a kick at his backside that caught his coccyx and made him yelp, and then she had snatched her bag from the worktop and stormed from the room.

  He’d waited until he heard the front door slam shut before he started crawling towards the kitchen sink, soothing his bruises with cold water, and making sure no blood dropped to the cheap linoleum-covered floor.

  He wiped at his cheeks, angry that tears blurred his vision. He could still remember every single punch and kick from that day, and all the other days.

  No wonder his dad had walked out on her when Eli was only five years old.

  He’d never been able to work out why he could never fight back. He knew it was the alcohol that made her the way she was, but he had nowhere else to go.

  That much had been made clear to him.

  Very clear.

  Eli sniffed, and glanced at the beige colouring that now stained his fingers.

  One of his secondary school teachers had suggested using make-up to cover his bruises when she’d heard the bullies one morning in the playground.

  She’d taken him to one side, placed a small innocuous-looking tube into his palm, and wrapped his fingers around it. ‘Try this,’ she’d said. ‘Maybe, if they can’t see them, they’ll leave you alone.’

  He’d nodded, grateful and slightly confused. It had taken a further three days before his mother left the house long enough for him to try the foundation cream. He’d been amazed at the results, and though the bullying didn’t stop completely – his mother’s alcoholism was a running joke at the secondary school – at least he didn’t stand out so much.

  He clenched his fist. Until Melanie Richards and her stupid friend, encouraged by the girl’s father, had started teasing him for wearing make-up.

  It wasn’t his fault. It had been raining that day, and when the older woman who worked in the warehouse had handed him a towel to dry off his hair after he’d run from the van, he’d accidentally wiped the make-up from his arms and face, too.

  He’d lowered the towel to see Melanie staring at him, mouth open, before she’d laughed, and pointed out the make-up on the towel to her brute of a father and a friend of hers. The friend had turned around and raised her smartphone, committing his discomfort and embarrassment to social media history.

  The older woman who ran the warehouse had blushed, snatched the girl’s phone from her and deleted the image, much to the rancour of the teenagers. She had tried to make light of it, and told him not to worry as she helped him to the door with the parcels.

  He had smiled, told her it was nothing.

  He’d battened down the fury until he’d stalked across the forecourt to his vehicle. He’d thrown the parcels into the back of the van, not caring about the contents, and vowed his revenge.

  He’d show them what happened to bullies. He might not be able to control his mother, but he could stand up for himself away from her clutches.

  Another groan reached his ears.

  Eli checked over his shoulder. The girl had knocked her head on something, and he didn’t know what. There was blood on the side of h
er face, and while she was still unconscious, he’d checked and found a cut under her hair. Satisfied that it wasn’t life-threatening, he relaxed. He wanted her on his terms.

  He reached into the bag and pulled out the contents, lining them up along the plastic covering of a narrow brick shelf that ran along the wall next to him.

  Lipstick, mobile phone, purse – no notes, just change – a small box of tampons, and—

  His fingers wrapped around a flimsy article, and as he extracted it, he realised it was a polaroid photograph, the sort people took in photo booths for passport photos.

  His thumb rubbed across the face of the man in the photograph, and a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

  Things were going even better than he had imagined.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Kay and Barnes turned at the sound of the door opening behind them.

  ‘Thanks for seeing us at short notice,’ said Kay.

  Bob Rogers shook her hand. ‘No problem. I’ll use the meeting room here,’ he said to the receptionist.

  ‘Sorry, Bob,’ she said. ‘David’s got that one booked for the next hour.’

  Rogers grimaced. ‘Okay. We’ll have to use my office.’ He beckoned to them. ‘Come on through.’

  He swiped his card, held the door open for them, and then led the way down a windowless corridor.

  About halfway down, he pushed open the door to his office, and led the way in. ‘Excuse the mess. I’m trying to get some statistics together for head office.’

  He gestured towards the chairs opposite his desk. ‘Take a seat.’

  He moved around the desk, closed an open laptop computer, and pushed it out of the way before gathering up the paperwork strewn across the desk.

  ‘If I don’t do this now, I’ll end up doing it tonight at home.’

  ‘We’re sorry to interrupt your work,’ said Kay. ‘But I was hoping you could help me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Rogers, sitting down. ‘What do you need?’

  Kay reached into her bag, pulled out a photograph before handing it to Rogers. ‘Do you know this man?’

  Rogers frowned as he looked at the image, and scratched his chin. ‘He looks familiar.’