by Ashley Dyer
Dedication
For Murf
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
A woman stands in the middle of Detective Chief Inspector Greg Carver’s sitting room. She is holding a 1911 Colt pistol in her hand. To all appearances, she is calm; there are things she needs to do. She pivots on the ball of her foot, turning full circle, taking in every detail of the scene. Nothing has been disturbed. An empty whisky bottle lies on its side on the floor. Greg Carver is slumped in an easy chair, one leg bent at the knee, the other straight out. Looking down at him she feels anger and contempt, but also regret. His eyes are open, blood oozes from a bullet wound in his chest. She shifts the weight of the gun in her gloved hand, flips the catch to safety. The place reeks of alcohol, gun smoke, and blood, and her stomach hitches, but she snuffs hard, purging her nostrils of the stench.
She carries the gun through to the kitchen; his laptop is propped open, his files spread out across the table. The floor, ankle deep in balled-up paper, looks like the aftermath of a massive hailstorm. On a chair beside the table is a cardboard filing box. She drops two of the files into it, gingerly wraps the gun in clean paper, and carefully lowers it on top of them.
Under the litter of papers on the kitchen table, she finds a framed photograph, lain facedown. DCI Carver’s wife, Emma, on their honeymoon, seated on a stony outcrop near a waterfall. Emma is blond and slender. She is wearing skinny jeans with wedge sandals, a blue peasant top. Her hair, silky and long, is combed in a center parting. She is smiling. The woman carries the picture through to Carver’s sitting room, wipes it for prints, and places it on the top of the cupboard, where it always sits.
In the bedroom, A3-size wall charts Blu Tacked to the walls. On one, smiling photos of five female victims alongside handwritten notes:
Tali Tredwin—DOD: 3rd January. Age 27, 5ʹ 4ʺ, brown hair, brown eyes. Divorced, 2 children. Back & shoulders tattooed—blue ink. Severe ink bleed, speckling. Maori symbols & eyes—all closed. Berberis thorn.
Evie Dodd—DOD: 10th March. Age 25, 5ʹ 5ʺ, black hair, hazel eyes. Married, 3 children. Torso, neck, arms, legs, feet/soles, hands, palms, all tattooed—blue ink. Stylized plants, magical sigils & eyes—closed/half open/open. Ink bleed. Berberis thorn.
Hayley Evans—DOD: 6th June. Age 28, 5ʹ 3ʺ, brown hair, brown eyes. In civil partnership, 1 child. Torso, neck, arms, legs, feet/soles, hands, palms, all tattooed. Stylized plants, thorns, magical sigils & eyes—closed/half open/open. Blue ink. Less ink bleed. Pyracantha thorn.
Jo Raincliffe—DOD: 2nd September. Age 35, 5ʹ 6ʺ, brown hair, brown eyes. Married, 2 children. Torso, neck, arms, legs, feet/soles, hands, palms, all tattooed—blue ink. Stylized plants, thorns, sigils, etc. No ink bleed. Pyracantha thorn.
Kara Grogan—DOD: 22nd December. Age 20, 5ʹ 10ʺ, blond hair, blue eyes. Torso, neck, arms, legs, feet/soles, hands, palms, all tattooed—black ink. No bleed. Stylized plants, thorns, magical sigils & eyes—a lot of eyes. Pyracantha thorn.
She peels the charts away from the wall, folds them, carrying them back to the kitchen, where she scoops up the rest of the papers—balled-up notes and all—and stuffs them inside the file box, jamming the lid onto it.
She wipes down the door handles, light switches, his chair. Hefting the box, she makes her way out of the house, treading carefully on the fire escape steps at the rear of the building and down the driveway. It has recently been cleared of snow, but her shoe marks are visible in the fresh fall. It’s very dark, and the curtains are drawn up and down the street; she doesn’t think she’s been seen.
Minutes later, she returns ungloved, without the box, and climbs the steps to the front of the house, wipes the bell push, then presses it. She doesn’t wait—but takes a key fob from her back pocket and uses one of the two keys on it to open the front door. Inside Carver’s flat, she retraces her steps, touching surfaces she has just wiped down. Finishing her journey at Carver’s chair, she sees the drained bottle again and something niggles at the edges of her consciousness, like an itch she can’t quite reach. But she doesn’t have time for this—what’s done is done.
She crouches in front of him, gripping the armrests and staring into his face.
She gasps, springing to her feet.
Panting, her heart hammering, she watches him for a few seconds. You imagined it.
She lowers herself, holding her breath, her eyes fixed on his. Greg Carver’s eyes are light hazel, flecked with gold. Sometimes those gold flecks seem to shimmer, but not now. Now they are dull, dead. She leans in closer, watching, barely breathing—and sees again a flicker of movement in one eyelid. Her shoulders slump and she swears softly.
Chapter 2
Day 1
The woman held Greg Carver’s front door open for the paramedics. They took the steps slowly on snow now trodden to slush and ice. Her own footwear impressions leading from the fire escape at the side of the house and down the drive had been quickly covered by the steady fall of snow. A police helicopter clattering overhead shut off its NightSun beam and moved off in an abrupt maneuver, most likely recalled as the snow whirled and thickened. Lights flashed on emergency vehicles, arc lamps lit up the driveway of Carver’s house, and crime scene tape was strung fifteen meters either side as an outer cordon to keep gawkers at bay. She followed the medics to the waiting ambulance and spoke a few words, watching until Carver was lifted inside.
A Scientific Support van was parked inside the cordon. Two CSIs and the crime scene manager stood at the rear, suited up, ready to move in when they were given the okay.
The woman took a breath before heading over to them. “It’s all yours,” she said.
“Is it true?” the CSM asked.
“It’s Carver,” she said.
“Jesus, Ruth.” He touched her elbow.
Detective Sergeant Ruth Lake edged away. “Eyes everywhere,” she murmured. She’d seen two local journalists outside the tape already.
“Where are they taking him?”
he asked.
“The Royal.” Her throat closed and she couldn’t say any more.
“Anything I can do?”
“Just be thorough.”
“Goes without saying.”
Lake tilted her head, a gesture of apology.
“I touched the doors—handles and locks—” She frowned as if trying to recall. “Light switches and the chair—in the sitting room at the front of the flat. He was—that’s where I . . .”
He nodded. “Understood. We’ll need your footwear.”
She scratched her eyebrow. “I’ll get it to you.”
“How’d you get in?”
“It was wide open,” she said, avoiding a direct lie. But her hand closed involuntarily around the key fob in her coat pocket, and she looked away.
He ducked his head, forcing eye contact. “If there’s evidence in there, we’ll find it, Ruth.”
She blinked, twice. “I know.”
“Trained by the best,” he said.
She couldn’t manage a smile.
A car turned into the street and a beefy man got out, fastening his overcoat and striding through the crowd of onlookers as if they were invisible. Detective Superintendent Jim Wilshire wasn’t media-friendly police.
Taken by surprise, the two journalists at the tape turned a little too late to get a decent shot, and he ducked under and was fifteen feet away by the time they regained their equilibrium.
“Superintendent,” one of them called out. “Sir—is it the Thorn Killer?”
Ruth Lake exchanged a look with the CSM. “I’ll catch up with you later,” she said.
The CSIs headed inside, and she straightened her back, waiting for the superintendent.
“Detective Sergeant Lake,” Wilshire said.
“Sir.”
“Join me.” He walked to the far side of the outer cordon where there were fewer people. There, he unfolded a huge black umbrella, more to shield them from the crowd, she suspected, than as protection from the weather.
She stepped under its canopy.
“Greg Carver?” His voice was lighter than you would expect in a big man.
She nodded.
“Who’s the first officer attending?”
She looked guilelessly into his face. “I am.”
“You got here fast.”
“Actually, I found him.”
He frowned. “This was, what—thirty minutes ago?”
“Thereabouts.”
He checked his watch. She knew it was ten past midnight.
“Odd time of night to be making a social call, Sergeant.” His tone was speculative, inviting explanation rather than demanding it.
“He wanted to talk about the case.”
“Odd time and place for a meeting,” he said, sharper, now.
She nodded, felt her eyebrow twitch, but didn’t comment.
He watched her for a few more seconds, and she forced herself to breathe slowly and stay calm.
Behind her, the road lit up and she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, followed by the creak of tires on fresh snow. She glanced over her shoulder as a large vehicle braked to a halt. Mersey View—a local cable TV company. Wilshire hated those people more than all the others.
“Sir?” she said.
He looked past her at the broadcast crew scrambling out of the van.
“All right, I’ll let it pass—for now,” he said. “But you heard the press when I got here. They’re already asking if this is the work of the Thorn Killer. So you need to brief me.”
She took a breath, exhaled, put herself in the right mind-set to give her boss the details he needed to hear.
“He was sitting in an armchair in his front room,” she said. “He’s been shot in the chest at close range.” She cleared her throat. “It looks like a small-caliber bullet.”
“You know this because . . . ?”
“I was a CSI,” she said. “I’ve seen a few shootings. And . . . there wasn’t much blood.”
But she’d smelled it well enough. The coppery stink rose in her nostrils again.
Wilshire said, “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said. “Just—”
He nodded, then shifted position slightly, and she realized he was blocking the cable TV crew’s view. “It’s understandable. But you need to hold it together. It’s your scene till the OIC gets here.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He drew his brows down, and she knew she’d sounded snappish. To hell with him. “Who is the officer in charge?” Wilshire’s nostrils flared, and she added, “If you don’t mind me asking, sir.”
“DCI Jansen,” he said, his tone stiff. “He’ll be here in twenty. He’ll want to know if you compromised the scene in any way.”
Her heart stopped for a moment, then began again, a slow, thick thud in her chest. “I’m a trained CSI,” she said.
“Even so, in the heat of the moment . . .”
“I was careful,” she said, truthfully.
“Did he say anything?”
“Carver?” she said stupidly.
“Yes, Carver. Did he say anything?”
“I thought he was dead.” She felt a horrifying bubble of laughter surge up in her chest and gripped the keys in her pocket so hard she felt the cut edge break the skin of her palm.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
She bit her lip.
“Sergeant Lake?”
Ruth swallowed the humiliating urge to laugh and shook her head, focusing on a patch of pure white snow that reflected the light of the emergency vehicles stuttering red and blue, seeing Carver’s eyes staring back at her, the flicker of the lights recalling the slight tremble of his eyelid, the moment she realized he was still breathing.
She started to shake.
“Sergeant,” Wilshire hissed, moving in so close that she had to take a step back.
She looked into his face and the shaking stopped.
“Look, the ambulance is about to leave. Go with him if you want—these media clowns will be on at you until they get a comment.” More press had begun to pile in—national outside broadcast crews, already in town reporting on Kara Grogan, swelled the numbers of local journalists. They set up their own arc lamps and called from the edge of the cordon, agitating for an update on the situation.
“I need to work,” she said.
“You can’t work the scene, and you can’t work the case—you know that.”
“More use on the j-job,” she said, then clamped her jaw shut to stop her teeth chattering.
“Where’s your car?”
Lake jerked her chin toward her Renault Clio, parked opposite Carver’s house inside the police cordon, with Carver’s files and the gun still in the boot. She should have moved it after she’d called emergency services; right now, it was officially part of the scene.
“Come on.” Wilshire took her by the elbow. “We’ll talk in there.”
“What?” The files. The gun. “No!” She pulled free of him.
“Lower your voice, Sergeant,” Wilshire hissed.
“Sorry, sir. I—I mean I should stay.”
“You’re showing signs of shock,” her boss said. “We need to get you out of this storm.”
He meant the snowstorm, but she thought he had never said a truer word.
“Get in your car, I’ll wave you out after the ambulance—unless you want me to get someone to drive you home?”
Relief washed through her. “No—I can drive. Thanks.” She fumbled her car keys from her coat pocket and got behind the wheel, staring straight ahead as uniformed police moved the media vans out of the way to let the ambulance through. The ambulance’s emergency lights and the press cameras strobed on her eyeballs, half blinding her, but she gripped the wheel till it creaked with the tension and gritted her teeth and kept the wheels turning until she was out of the street.
Chapter 3
Sounds buzz and zip through Carver’s ears like radio interference; alien sounds lik
e telemetry from a distant planet.
He is lying on his back. Which doesn’t make sense: he should be sitting up in his chair, drinking—that’s what he was doing, isn’t it? Yes, he remembers with a burst of triumph, as if remembering will make sense of this crazy confusion of light and noise. He was drinking. Whisky—a lot of it.
Then the world tilts and swoops, and he loses all sense of up or down. He feels the rush of air beneath him, hears a roar of jet engines, and feels a panicky flutter in his chest. I shouldn’t be here, I’ve got a case to investigate. Lights whiz by overhead, like runway lights on an airstrip—another nonsense—runway lights aren’t overhead. Above, or below, either way, he shouldn’t be seeing this; he would have to be outside the plane to see what he’s seeing.
Jeez, Carver, you’re drunk. But he feels the dull throb of a headache beginning, so maybe he passed out and this is the morning after.
A shadow moves in front of the lights: human, but strangely formless.
This is freaky, he thinks, and suddenly he’s standing in St. James’s cemetery. The sheer sandstone walls of the sunken cemetery loom sixteen yards high either side of him, across a wide, flat space—remnants of the old quarry that provided sandstone to build much of Liverpool in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the westerly side, the escarpment rears up to Liverpool Cathedral. A biting wind screams from the Mersey River, a mile away, gaining momentum as it crests the hill and plunges down into the old quarry bed.
DS Lake is looking at the body of a young woman lain out on a table tomb, hard against the cemetery’s sheer sandstone walls.
“This is freaky,” she says, echoing his own words. But she’s looking at the first of the Thorn Killer’s victims, and that was a year ago, so really, he is echoing her. And wasn’t he somewhere else a minute ago—with jet engines roaring and lights racing overhead?
The victim is fully clothed, but with enough bare flesh showing to see what had been done to her. The patterns have been etched into her skin: eyes, half closed, hiding something. Hiding? Now where did that come from? Tali—Tali Tredwin, her name was. They didn’t know it then, but it seems important to remember it, now.
Someone is calling: “Greg. Greg Carver?”