by Mari Hannah
And the manner in which she was killed is too close to home for Frankie . . .
‘Brand new series, same top-notch writing’ Eva Dolan
‘Nobody understands the many faces of cops better than Mari Hannah’ Val McDermid
‘Mari Hannah writes with a sharp eye and a dark heart’ Peter James
1
It was the news they had all been dreading, confirmation of a fourth victim. For DS Frances Oliver, the journey to the crime scene brought about memories of her father driving her around the county when she was a rookie cop just out of training school, pointing out the places he’d been called upon to investigate unspeakable horrors throughout his own police career, giving her the benefit of his advice along the way. Back then, they were words. Just words. Narratives that, if she were being honest, excited her in ways they should not. And then there was the night he stopped talking: an experience etched on their collective memory for ever more – a night too close to home.
Flashlight beams bobbed up and down illuminating sheets of horizontal rain. The detectives stumbled along the Tyne Valley track, heading east on the Northern Rail line linking Carlisle to Newcastle. No light pollution here. Under a dark, forbidding sky, it was difficult terrain, rutted and sodden, so close to the water’s edge. The swollen river thundered by, a course of water liable to flooding. Red alerts for the area were a regular occurrence. At midday, Northumberland’s monitoring stations had warned of a serious threat to those living nearby. If the Tyne rose quickly, Frankie knew they would be in trouble. Many a walker had slipped into the water here by accident.
Few had survived.
Lightning forked, exposing the beauty of the surrounding landscape. A high voltage electric charge, followed by the rumble of thunder in the distance, an omen of more rain to come. Frankie’s guv’nor, Detective Chief Inspector David Stone, was a blurred smudge a hundred metres in front of her, head bowed, shoulders hunched against the relentless downpour.
Mud sucked at Frankie’s feet as she fought to keep up, two steps forward, one back, as she tried to get a purchase on the slippery surface. Her right foot stuck fast, the momentum of her stride propelling her forward, minus a wellington boot. She fell, head first, hands and knees skidding as she tried to stay upright. Dragging herself up, she swore under her breath as brown sludge stuck to her clothing, weighing her down.
Unaware of her plight, David was making headway, sweeping his torch left and then right in a wide arc close to Eels Wood. He had one agenda and Frankie wasn’t it. With a feeling of dread eating its way in to her gut, she peered into the undergrowth blocking her passage. Where was a stick when you needed one? As she parted the brambles, there was an ear-splitting crack, a terrifying sound. A tree fell, crashing to earth with an excruciating thump loud enough to wake the dead, unearthed by a raging torrent of water filtering off higher ground, its roots unable to sustain the weight of a century of growth, landing metres in front of her.
Frankie blew out a breath.
Only once had she come closer to violent death. Hoping her luck would hold, she vaulted the tree and ploughed on. From an investigative standpoint, the situation was grim. Had there been any footprints adjacent to the line, they were long gone. As crime scenes go, they would be fighting a losing battle to preserve evidence, assuming they ever found the woman spotted by an eyewitness, a passenger on an eastbound train. Where the fuck was she?
Frankie expected to see the dragon ahead, a wide-eye LED searchlight used by emergency services, an intense beam of white light guiding her. As far as the eye could see none was visible. Worrying. Exasperating. She couldn’t be arsed with this. Pulling her radio from her pocket, she pressed the transmit button hoping her link to Control wouldn’t be affected by the appalling weather. It would be a heavy night in the control room, for sure.
‘Oliver to Control. We’re in position. Can you repeat the coordinates? We’re seeing bugger all out here.’
Silence.
‘Damn it! DS Oliver to Control. Are you receiving? Over . . .’
Her radio crackled to life: ‘Control: go ahead.’
Wiping rain from her nose with the back of her hand, Frankie repeated her request, yanking at the drawstring on the hood of her raincoat to stop water getting in. A useless exercise. ‘Have a word with first responders, will you? If they’re guarding a crime scene, they should know where the bloody hell they are. We need help here.’
‘Understood. I’ll get back to you.’
Ending the transmission with one eye on Stone, the other on the rising river level, Frankie stopped walking. There was no point continuing without an update. By now it was glaringly obvious they were in the wrong place.
‘Guv, hold on!’ Her voice was lost on the wind.
David was still on the move, keen to reach the scene and do his job. What happened next shook her to the core. An icy shiver ran down her spine. Her scalp tightened, every hair on her head standing to attention, a physiological reaction to danger. With the roar of the wind, she couldn’t hear but she could feel. She looked behind her. Nothing. There it was again, a definite vibration through her unbooted foot. She swung round. Up ahead Stone was oblivious, his worst nightmare was on its way.
She screamed at him to get off the track.
He kept going. A man on a mission with no clue of what was going down. Kicking off her remaining boot, Frankie sprinted barefoot, precariously close to the water’s edge, dislodged gravel cutting her feet as she ran – or tried to – a sudden release of hormones providing a vital burst of energy.
‘Guv, stop!’
He was too far in front to hear her cries.
As the south side of the river burst its bank, she clung to a tree for safety, self-preservation her priority now. Unable to go on or go back, she had to do something. If she didn’t get out of there soon, she’d be swept away in the raging torrent and washed downstream.
If David didn’t . . . she didn’t want to think about that.
The vibration through the soles of her feet increased. Frankie panicked. Realising she’d never get to him in time, she used her torch – three short bursts; three longer ones; three short – a last ditch attempt to save her SIO from certain death. International Morse code was the distress call every police officer was sensitive to and, finally, she had his attention. As if in slow motion, he turned to face her, lifting his hand to shade his eyes as she shone the torch directly at him. In the distance, over his shoulder, Frankie spotted a pinprick of light.
Oh fuck!
It disappeared as her guv’nor blinded her with his own flashlight, peering through the darkness, with his back to imminent danger. Seeing the depth of water all around her, he’d be more worried about her predicament than his own. Frantically, she waved him off the track, a sob leaving her throat as he walked towards her. He thought she was calling for help.
‘No!’ she screamed.
A horn blasted behind him. Simultaneously, the light left Frankie’s face and the freight train was upon her. It whooshed by, feet away, rattling down the track. Frantic, she shone her torch along the railway line. No movement. She dry-heaved. Thirty seconds later, David rose to his feet. He’d thrown himself clear with seconds to spare. Frankie sunk to her knees, almost waist deep in water. Jesus! That was a close call.
Don’t miss out on the next gripping novel by Mari Hannah.
Coming November 2018.
About the Author
Mari Hannah is a multi-award-winning author whose authentic voice is no happy accident. A former probation officer, she lives in rural Northumberland with her partner, an ex-murder detective. Mari turned to script-writing when her career was cut short following an assault on duty. Her debut, The Murder Wall (adapted from a script she developed with the BBC) won her the Polari First Book Prize. Its follow-up, Settled Blood, picked up a Northern Writers’ Award. Her Kate Daniels series is in development wi
th Stephen Fry’s production company, Sprout Pictures. She is currently Reader in Residence for Harrogate International Crime Writing Festival. Mari’s body of work won her the CWA Dagger in the Library 2017, an incredible honour to receive so early on in her career.
Find out more by following Mari on Twitter @mariwriter or visiting her website www.marihannah.com
Also by Mari Hannah
Kate Daniels series
The Murder Wall
Settled Blood
Deadly Deceit
Monument to Murder (aka Fatal Games)
Killing for Keeps
Gallows Drop
Ryan & O’Neil series
The Silent Room
The Death Messenger
Copyright
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books
Ebook first published in 2018 by Orion Books
Copyright © Mari Hannah 2018
The right of Mari Hannah to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a etrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 7406 6
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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