by David Evans
Table of Contents
Also by this author:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
Also by this Author:
A note from Bloodhound Books:
Acknowledgements
TALISMAN
David Evans
Copyright © 2016 David Evans
The right of David Evans to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2016 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Also by this author:
Trophies: Part 1 of the CWA Debut Dagger Nominated Wakefield Series
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Torment: The critically acclaimed second part of the Wakefield Series
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Mum & Dad,
who gave me everything I needed
1
Thursday 16th August 2001
The hood is put over his head, shutting out the light. This is the final act. His wrists and ankles have been shackled to the frame that is bolted to the wall. His excitement grows, clearly visible, as he anticipates what is to come. Will it be whips, or canes? Leather; he loves leather. The belt is his favourite. Or will nothing happen at all? That would be the cruellest deed. Another set of footsteps enters the room, coming steadily towards him. What is this? His mouth is forced open and something made of sponge forced in. He nearly gags. Tape then covers the lower part of his face. This is new. He never expected that.
After a minute or so, he hears the door close. The key is turned. The sounds of feet on the stairs. He wants to shout out but the object in his mouth stops him. He can’t work out what is happening; what might happen. After another few minutes, he is sure he hears the outside door closing. This isn’t funny. His other senses become more acute. There is no sound at all now. He is positive he’s alone. But surely this can’t happen. This is a huge turn-off. He struggles with his arms and legs. It’s no good, they are too well restrained. And then he smells it. Only very faint at first but after a few seconds, he is sure. Smoke. Not cigarettes, but something burning. It grows stronger.
He can’t feel any heat. But he is sweating. He tries twisting his hands in the restraints, first one way, then the other. He can’t get either thumb through. His feet have no chance, the heels catching against the shackles. Shit! This isn’t happening. Suddenly, he relaxes. Of course, this is the chosen way of torturing him, pleasuring him; letting him think he is going to die, restrained in a fire. He can’t hear anyone, but they must still be in the room; keeping quiet. He can’t work out how it is being done but it must be some sort of smoke machine. That’s it. Yes.
No. He hears crackling sounds from the room below. He doesn’t imagine that. He tries to yell again, but convulses with the object in his mouth. The automatic reaction is a deep breath through the nose. This is when he first catches the unmistakeable stench of acrid smoke. He tries to calm himself but it is no good, his body fights for oxygen. The more it does, the more choking poisonous smoke it draws in. A small explosion and the sounds of broken glass.
He composes himself once more. Sleep is coming.
He is a boy again, back in the bedroom of his parents’ house where he grew up. His elder brother is with him. They are playing, their voices muffled. He can’t make out what his brother is saying, but it’s a rough game. He isn’t frightened when his brother sits on his chest. What’s that he’s saying? Sounds like, ‘Tell me what it feels like. What happens afterwards?’ He feels himself nod. Then the pillow comes over his face. He struggles, then the feeling of falling down a deep hole. The light at the top is fading and growing smaller. It has almost disappeared when he hears his father’s voice, shouting. He can’t make out what is said but the weight of his brother is gone and he can breathe again. That was how he remembered the incident; only this time, his father doesn’t come. This time the deep hole swallows him until the light is extinguished.
Before he can hear the sirens, it is over.
2
Six Weeks Earlier
Thursday 5th July 2001
Wakefield; lying at the heart of the world-famous rhubarb triangle; home of the Empire Stores catalogue and the National Mining Museum. A fine, warm sunny day had dawned but over Wood Street Police Station, dark clouds formed.
In his office on the first floor, one of West Yorkshire’s finest, Detective Inspector Colin Strong was contemplating the news. Disappointment, anger and shock were the emotions running high in his system. Disappointment that, after nearly nine months as Acting DCI, the permanent promotion had failed to materialise. Anger at the thought that it may have had something to do with the actions he took in trying to protect his old boss, Cunningham. And shock at the candidate who had been drafted in for the position, a graduate entry fast track high-flyer by the name of Rupert Hemingford. Thirty-six years old, single and late of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. Detective Superintendent Flynn had called Strong up to his office that morning to break the news. Flynn’s words from last August sped through his mind. ’Who knows, play your cards right and it could be yours permanently,’ he’d said to him. Well it was obvious now that he hadn’t played his cards right.
“I’m sorry, Colin,” Flynn said, “I know you’ll be bitterly disappointed but the top brass thought it appropriate to bring in some fresh blood … shake things up a bit.”
“It’ll certainly do that,” Strong had managed in response. He didn’t say much else.
Sitting at the desk in his office next to the CID room, he festered. Finally, he stood up, put on his suit jacket and made for the door. He needed to use some energy as well as have time to think. Exiting through the main doors, he turned left, down the steps onto Wood Street and headed towards The Bullring. Unaware of the warm sun on his shoulders, he walked down the street, lost in thought. Fresh blood, ha! Forty-three years old and feeling passed over. He was a university graduate too, but he’d put his time in on the beat initially, before making his way through the ranks in CID. Altho
ugh it was never mentioned, Strong suspected that evidence he had discovered to overturn a young man’s conviction for sexual assault, and Cunningham’s retirement in the fall-out, had not done him any favours.
He caught his reflection in a shop window as he passed by the side of the cathedral. He still had all his hair, light brown with no grey, didn’t need glasses, but there was a slight slouch to his walk. Imperceptibly, he pulled himself straighter to his full six feet and headed for The Ridings shopping centre. Through the doors, down the steps and along the mall, a name caught his eye. Laura Ashley. Laura? Yes what will Laura say? Married for twenty years this year. Laura was deputy head teacher at a primary school in Morley. She’d probably be more disappointed for him than he was.
He found himself in Morrisons, standing in front of the cigarette counter and heard himself asking for a packet of his favourite cigars. Only he’d given up for, how long was it now, almost a year? He paid for them, put them in the inside pocket of his jacket and left, desperate to smoke one. But the illogicality of his purchase snapped Strong from his self-pity. He couldn’t allow the failure to gain permanent promotion to be reflected in his failure to remain smoke free. He would keep the packet unopened as a reminder of how long he’d given up and just how close he’d come to failing. With that thought, he strode purposefully back to the station.
Returning through the main doors and into the reception area, a youth and a woman he took to be his mother were at the desk signing paperwork with the sergeant. Strong was about to tap in the key code to gain entry to the main building when the door opened.
DS Kelly Stainmore appeared. “Ah, guv, I was just looking for you.”
Stainmore, one of his best detectives, looked worn out. Short blonde hair framed a face that had begun to look older than her thirty-four years. Dark shadows below her eyes and skin that appeared leathery made him think there was some underlying health problem. She also seemed to have gained weight in recent weeks.
“What’s up, Kelly?” he asked, passing through the open door.
She followed him down the corridor. “Got a call about a sudden death.”
“Where?”
“Normanton.”
When he reached the door to the car park at the rear, he turned to face her. “Tell me what you know on the way. Do you want me to drive?”
“Er, yeah. Don’t mind.”
“Then you can tell me what’s up with you as well.”
She hesitated for a second then followed him to his Mondeo.
The journey to Normanton, a former mining town and railway junction to the east of the city, took fifteen minutes. At the beginning, all Stainmore contributed was the address. She was silent for the next ten minutes. Strong felt he had to probe. “Come on then, Kelly, what’s on your mind?”
She continued to look out the window. At first, he thought she was going to ignore him altogether. Finally, she replied. “Have you ever thought you were going nowhere?”
He gave a sardonic smile but said nothing.
“Oh, ignore me. I’m fine.” She turned to face him. “No, really I am. I’m okay.”
He knew she wasn’t. “Look, Kelly, we’ve worked together for what, five years? If you ever need to talk about anything …”
“I know.”
The remainder of the journey passed in silence. They turned into a street with red brick terraced houses on both sides and drew to a halt behind the marked police vehicle already there.
“You go in,” Strong said, pulling his mobile from a pocket. “I need to make a call.”
“Thanks, guv,” she said with irony, paused a moment, then got out.
3
Belinda Chamberlain collected coppers. No, not policemen, she didn’t have a fetish for men in uniform. She’d saved pennies and two pence pieces, ever since she never had two of them to rub together in her student nurse days. That was before she met Charlie, or Charles as the stuck-up sod insisted everyone call him now. She blamed his parents, alliteration gone mad. It was only as his career began a vertical trajectory did he think Charles Chamberlain sounded far more professional. She had to agree it looked better on the brass plate outside his offices but it did rankle when he insisted she call him by his full name as well.
He was studying for a law degree when she met him in a nightclub in Leeds, over twenty-seven years ago now. She was with a couple of colleagues, student nurses, out on the town, rather the worse for wear; he was with a group of fellow students. Three years later, they were married, she a staff nurse at Leeds General Infirmary, he articled to a legal practice in Wakefield. A daughter was born soon after, Grace, now twenty-three and working in an accountants' office in Southampton, after graduating from university there last year. Six years later a son, Anthony, now seventeen, arrived. He’d just completed his AS Level exams at QUEGS, the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, a short walk away in the city.
She’d had a relaxing morning, bit of a lie in, a shower, cooked breakfast, and was preparing for a late shift at the hospital. Her shoulder length blonde hair had been dried, brushed and swept up onto the top of her head. The pennies and two pence pieces were stacked in ten pence piles on top of the chest of drawers in the bedroom. About to bag up another pound’s worth, she realised she’d already used her last plastic coin bag. Spares were kept in her bedside drawer but, when she opened it, there were none. When she thought about it later, she could never explain why, but she walked round and checked Charlie’s side. No plastic bags; just a couple of paperbacks, a pot of skin cream and a plastic pop-out paracetamol pack. He was the one who ‘suffered’ from headaches these days. She shuffled them to the side and spotted below an official-looking brown envelope. Intrigued, she pulled it out and looked inside at what appeared to be old legal documents. She tipped them partly out and read, ‘LAND CHARGES ACT’. She was about to put them back when another document slipped clear. This was marked, ‘CONVEYANCE’. But this one spoke of a freehold property having been transferred from someone she didn’t know to C M Chamberlain. The address was Leeds Road in Outwood, no more than a couple of miles away, and it was dated July 1998, nearly three years ago. She was stunned. The only property she thought they had an interest in was where they lived now; St. John’s Square, a stylish 3-bedroom apartment in an elegant Georgian block near the centre of Wakefield. She carefully replaced the documents, leaving the drawer exactly as she’d found it.
Abandoning the coins for the moment, she wandered through to the lounge and gazed out of the tall windows across the wooded green to St John’s Church. Why would Charlie have bought another property without telling her? The man was becoming more and more surreptitious. When they first married they shared everything. Slowly, as his career began to take off, he told her less and less. She didn’t even know how much money they had. Her salary went into a joint account and the bills were paid from there. But, when she thought about it, she didn’t have a clue what other savings they had. Charlie looked after all the finances. She would have to change that. And she’d also have to find out about the Outwood house. Just then, the sun broke from behind the clouds, put the church spire into perfect silhouette and streamed in through the lounge windows. Exactly, she said to herself, I’ll talk to him tonight.
4
The contents of the bath resembled pea and ham soup. Stainmore hadn’t seen many bodies in her career. If it wasn’t for the remains of the two forearms and hands tightly gripping the edges of the bath, she wouldn’t be sure she was looking at one now.
Kitted up in standard issue white coveralls, latex gloves and a face mask in place, she was standing in the bathroom of the mid-terraced house.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “Any initial thoughts, doctor?”
Dr Andrew Symonds, one of West Yorkshire’s regular medical specialists, drew a deep breath behind his mask and considered a response. “For what it’s worth, I’ve never come across anything like it either.”
Stainmore
studied the scene again. The head had dropped forward into the water, the hair floating on the surface. The remains of numerous candles stood around the edge of the bath, all burned down to the end. A whisky tumbler, stained dark brown, lay within reach of the right hand. She looked back to the doctor. “Anything to arouse suspicion?”
“Nothing obvious,” Symonds responded. “But how the Hell we strain this off …”
“One for your scientist associates then.”
“They’ll be delighted. Do we know who it is?”
Stainmore flipped open her notebook. “Housing Department gave the name of the tenant as Denise Whitaker, aged fifty-eight.”
“It could be her, I suppose. We won’t know till we get those remains out of here.”
Two workmen from Wakefield District Council’s Housing Maintenance Team had called the police nearly two hours earlier. They’d had no response to a number of requests to gain entry to the property over the previous few weeks. Legally obliged to conduct the annual safety check on the gas appliances, the uniformed constable sent to accompany them had forced the front door. The odour led to the dreadful discovery in the bathroom.
Apart from the forced entry, there had been no other signs of disturbance that the constable could see. The two workmen had been told to wait in their van on the road outside. Stainmore had spotted it on her way in and had approached them.
“Have you two been in the house?” she had asked.
The younger one, about twenty, was in the passenger seat and looked ashen. His older colleague, balding with two day’s beard growth responded, “No, the copper told us to stay here while he checked the house. Is it bad?”
“We’re dealing with a sudden death,” was all she’d told them before heading inside.
Stainmore left the bathroom, removed her mask and walked into the main bedroom. The curtains were drawn and the bedside lamp lit. A double bed appeared freshly made, turned down ready for its occupant who would never again slide between the sheets. On the bedside table, a novel lay opened flat, waiting for the story to be resumed. A drinks coaster and alarm clock lay by its side. Protruding from underneath was a card with a strange symbol. She pulled it free and read, ‘Talisman Club’. It didn’t mean anything to her so she put it back and opened the drawer. A few creams and ointments, loose change and a purse were inside. But it was some other objects that puzzled her. She picked up one of the half dozen or so sponge balls, the size of a small apple.