ALSO BY CASEY KELLEHER
Rotten to the Core
Rise and Fall
Heartless
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2014 by Casey Kelleher
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477827130
ISBN-10: 1477827137
Cover design by bürosüd München, www.buerosued.de
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014944823
For Danny
My Hero.
xx
Contents
Start Reading
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
‘Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family.’
— Unknown
Prologue
1990
Bringing his fists up to protect his face, Harry Woods wasn’t quick enough. The whirlwind sucker-punch executed by Jake Pinner struck him with as much speed as it did precision. A surge of pain exploded in Harry’s skull, the impact almost knocking him to the floor. Harry could feel his right eye bulging as it throbbed in agony, instantly swelling up so that he could barely even open it. Squinting through his left eye, he struggled to keep his focus. He’d taken one too many brutal blows; he was starting to slip.
Jake Pinner was good. Harry needed to be better.
Every part of him ached, but he couldn’t give up now. He couldn’t lose this fight. He needed to concentrate, but after six gruelling rounds he knew that he didn’t have much left in him. This was the most important fight of his career, yet he couldn’t shift the niggle of doubt that he wasn’t going to go the distance tonight.
‘Keep your fists up, Harry, and your chin down.’ Raymond Marks’ voice echoed from somewhere behind him. His best friend’s instructions were dulled down by the roar of the crowd and the intense ringing in his ears, but even so, Harry recognised the desperation in Raymond’s tone. Even he was starting to lose his faith in him.
Never one for the sympathy vote, Harry knew that he needed to pull himself together.
This was his shot. His one chance.
Dripping with sweat, he paced the ring, psyching himself back up, all the while keeping eye contact as Jake threw out another blast of powerful hooks. The first blow caught Harry’s shoulder, the second missed as he quickly ducked out of the way.
Catching the steely look in his challenger’s eye, Harry could see that the man’s face was a mask of sheer determination.
Jake ‘The Sinner’ Pinner was moving in for the grand finale.
The bloke looked set to win, but Harry wasn’t done yet. Catching sight of Evelyn out of the corner of his eye, he found the strength to round on Pinner, and go at him with everything he had. Administering a set of brutal body blows, Harry caught his adversary by surprise.
The crowd cheered loudly, egging Harry on.
He was making a comeback.
Suddenly caught up in the moment, everything else in the arena around him just disappeared. The glare of the bright lights, the raucous chanting – all Harry could see was his opponent. As Harry rained his punches with full force, Jake flagged under the unexpected counter-attack.
Pivoting now, Harry put his full body weight behind each blow.
Mercilessly he was back on form. He was nailing it.
Hammering down his fists with perfect execution, Harry annihilated his rival, quickly, ferociously, opening up a large cut above his rival’s eye like a crisp packet. Then, he implemented one final, ruthless punch, slamming his opponent to the floor.
Jake Pinner was down. Harry was the last man standing.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s winner by knockout and the new World Heavyweight Champion . . . Harry “The Hammer” Woods.’
Insatiable, the room erupted around him, the audience roaring in celebration of Harry’s success.
Holding his head up high, proud of his accomplishment, Harry had never known a feeling like it. In front of everyone, the thousands of people packed inside this massive arena and the rest of the world who were watching at home on their television screens, with much anticipation, Harry had finally done it.
Jake Pinner had fought well, dishing out just as many punches as he was receiving, but in the end Harry had fought stronger, harder, faster. He hadn’t backed down.
Standing triumphantly as the sea of cameras flashed around him, blinding him as the press moved in like vultures picking greedily at the fresh bit of meat before them, all desperate to get that much sought-after exclusive quote from the new champion, Harry Woods clutched the large, extravagant prize-winner’s belt with pride, lifting it high in the air above his head. This was his trophy. It was what every minute until now had been leading up to. Those endless twelve-hour training days that he’d dragged himself through with monastic devotion, almost to breaking point. The food he’d forced upon himself, enduring a strict diet of six thousand calories a day, without so much as a drop of alcohol. It had been so punishing, so relentless, that at times Harry had almost given up.
Now, though, he knew without a doubt that it had been worth every arduous second. Harry knew deep down in his soul that this is what he was made for. Boxing was in his blood; he was following in the footsteps of his late grandfather, and today he’d placed himself well and truly on the map.
But there was only one person
he wanted to share this moment with.
Searching beyond the TV crew, with all their fancy equipment, Harry searched the crowd, looking for his wife. Scrutinising the many faces, his eyes flickered along the rows of people, occasionally catching the eye of a cheering supporter that he recognised, someone from the industry, or a faithful fan who’d followed him here, halfway around the world to New York City.
Then he saw her: wearing a vibrant purple dress that accentuated her buxom figure, how could he not?
His beautiful Evelyn lit up the room.
Clapping her hands she smiled as she caught his gaze. His wife had never looked more radiant than in that moment.
Seeing the tears of joy in her eyes, how proud she looked, Harry blew her a kiss. Smiling at her, his eyes moved down, following the purple fabric of her dress, as it skimmed over the slight curve of her stomach. Concealing her small round bump that only they knew about.
Harry felt a surge of emotions just then, caught up in his success and love for his wife and his unborn child. Only Evelyn knew just how hard he had worked for this, how much he had wanted it.
What she didn’t realise was that he had done it all for her.
For her and their baby.
‘You did it, Harry. You fucking did it!’ Moving in for a bear hug, Raymond Marks broke the spell; Harry’s sentimental moment was over. The two men embraced before Raymond handed Harry a bottle of cold water, then, wrapping a towel around his broad shoulders, Raymond gripped him tightly. ‘That was a fight and a half, Harry. You went in there like a warrior. You’re the fucking golden boy. Can you hear them all, Harry? They fucking love you.’ Raymond was ecstatic. His best mate was a champion. A legend.
And Harry could hear it loud and clear. Standing in the middle of the ring, centre stage in Madison Square Garden in New York City, the chanting, the stamping, the crowd’s collective elation. The stadium was alive, the atmosphere electric. The crowd’s continual applause was like beautiful music to his ears, to his soul.
He had made it.
As Heavyweight Champion he’d now be fighting the toughest, most notorious boxers in the world.
What’s more, now he was one of them.
Looking around him with awe, Harry Woods smiled. With his beautiful wife by his side, and his first child on the way, Harry Woods had the world at his feet, and today was only the beginning.
Chapter One
2014
Walking down the jetty of Wapping’s Marine Support Unit’s headquarters, Detective Inspector Freya Tompkins braced herself for the task ahead. No matter how often she dealt with dead bodies that had been pulled out of the river, she never ever seemed to desensitise from the initial shock of seeing a gruesome waterlogged corpse. She doubted that anyone ever really remained detached under such horrific circumstances.
Her fellow officers from the Met’s Specialist Search and Recovery Team had already warned her that the girl’s body they’d pulled from the water was in a bad way, and when those guys said ‘bad way’, Freya knew that she was about to see something horrendous. As an experienced officer, she’d seen enough decomposing, bloated bodies over the years to know that no matter how hard she tried to build up any kind of constitution to the sights she had seen, the haunting images that were etched on her brain always affected her for weeks afterwards.
Making her way towards the blue tarpaulin-sheeted tent ahead of her, she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Since she’d got the call twenty minutes ago, she had felt weighed down with a real sense of dread, and her instincts were nearly always right. The press would be all over this case in a heartbeat.
It was a story that the newspapers would deem as of major interest to the general public, like it was the public’s right to know every single grisly detail of how the girl had died.
The media was a joke. On average, the Search and Recovery Team pulled a body a week from the Thames’s steely waters. Bodies of fated suicides, homeless people or drunks who had accidentally wandered into the water underestimating its dangerous magnitude. The press were never interested in those cases. Most went unreported, in fact, apparently not interesting enough to acquire the public’s attention.
Of course, this case was different.
This case was about young girls. Prostitutes mainly. Dead girls who had been stripped naked, beaten and later found dead, floating in the Thames.
The press would be all over this story like white on rice, because it would sell their newspapers.
Freya was already stressed out enough over this case; she could have done without the media circus. So far they had no leads, nothing to go on. And the case going public just added more pressure for her team to get on with finding out who the perpetrator was. People loved reading about this morbid dark side of reality. Especially when it was happening right on their doorsteps.
And this case was as dark as they came.
Lifting up the tarpaulin, Freya carefully slipped inside the cordoned-off area. Holding her breath, she smelled the girl’s rotting body before she saw it. Gulping to suppress her gag reflex, she fought to compose herself in front of her fellow officers.
Focusing on the river officers, Freya could see the girl’s silhouette out of the corner of her eye, grimly splayed out in the narrow bath that was sunk into the floor, as the body was being examined by forensic pathologists.
‘So, what are we looking at?’ Directing the question at Officer Blake, Freya had hoped that her voice would sound calm, but even she could hear the iciness in her tone. She sounded disconnected, cold. She was trying too hard, but then, she’d rather come across as cold than show her colleagues her vulnerability. Freya always felt that she had to work twice as hard as her male colleagues to be taken seriously. Even just a hint of unease or emotion from her could jeopardise everything she had worked for. No matter what the Met claimed about equal opportunities in the force, Freya, from experience, knew differently. It was still very much a man’s world; give them so much as a hint of emotion, and they would eat you alive.
‘We found her down by Masthouse Terrace Pier, over on the North Bank.’ Officer Timothy Blake stood up and shook his head solemnly. ‘An unfortunate tourist raised the alarm. She was spotted in the water, by the pier. That sharp bend of the river down at the Isle of Dogs has become a trapping point for bodies.’
‘Same MO?’ Freya asked.
Officer Blake nodded. ‘The pathologist reckons she’s been in the river for roughly ten days, and going by the fact that she is naked and has ropes around her wrists they suspect that she was already dead when she entered the water. We’ll know more once they do the post-mortem.’ Glancing behind him to where the girl’s body lay in the steel bath, Officer Blake screwed his face up. ‘She’s taken a battering too. Some of the injuries are consistent with being hit by a large vessel. I’d say she was struck by several of the commuter boats down there; it’s a heavily trafficked stretch of water. Seagulls got to her too. But there are other injuries that fit with the killer’s profile. The bruising around her throat indicates that she was strangled, and she’s covered in bite marks. They’re hard to see at first due to the other injuries, but the pathologists have noted numerous teeth marks.’
Freya followed Officer Blake’s gaze, finally gathering the strength to look at the girl’s mangled body as they lifted her inside the body bag.
‘Jesus.’ Freya shivered.
The poor girl was someone’s daughter, sister, maybe even mother.
And the chances were she had fallen victim to some depraved lunatic.
Some callous perverted monster who had thought nothing of snatching the young girl’s life away for his own sexual pleasure.
Just the thought of the girl’s final moments made her feel physically sick.
‘I think your initial hunch was right, Detective Tompkins.’ Officer Blake sighed. ‘I think we have a serial killer on our hands.’
Chapter Two
Micky O’Shea shook his head in complete disbelief. The two fucking morons standing before him were either total imbeciles or they both had a death wish. Either way, Micky wanted his money. If these two idiots thought they could fob him off with yet another excuse they had another think coming.
‘Did I hear right, Jimmy?’ Micky sneered across the room to where his brother stood in the doorway. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I heard this fat cunt tell me that she ain’t got our money. Again.’
‘That’s what I heard an’ all, Micky.’ Jimmy, the younger of the O’Shea brothers, sucked his teeth at the predicament. They’d both heard the girl alright. Jimmy could see by the unwavering look on her face that somewhere deep in the back of this bird’s thick skull she actually thought that her having nothing to offer except yet another excuse would somehow be acceptable. But Jimmy knew well: excuses wouldn’t pay the bills. Only cold hard cash would do that. The blatant audacity of this poncing slag as she tried to palm him and Micky off with yet another excuse as if she just expected them both to lump it like a pair of numpties was grating on him. If he heard, ‘We ain’t got the money, give us some more time,’ one more fucking time he was really going to lose his patience.
In this house the never-ending excuses were beginning to sound like a bleeding scratched record. This pair of cunts had used every excuse in the book, so much so that Jimmy was beginning to think they wrote the fucking thing.
‘Look, I promise all we need is a couple more days.’ Kelly Stranks flashed a glare at her husband Terry, who so far hadn’t opened his mouth to speak so much as a word to back her up. So much for being the man of the house and standing up for her. Sometimes Kelly wondered if her husband had any bollocks, because every time the O’Sheas paid a visit Terry seemed to either lose them, or swallow them. It was bad enough that the O’Sheas were standing in her home, in her lounge as they berated her with their stream of abuse, but the fact that Terry just stood there in silence as they did so, looking like a complete gormless idiot, just added insult to injury.
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