Blood Runs Cold_A completely unputdownable mystery and suspense thriller

by Dylan Young

  He let out a wry exhalation on hearing his thoughts form the words ‘right mind’. What did that make him? Not right? Not normal?

  He dried his face and hands and tried to clear his mind before pulling open the bathroom door. There was work to be done.

  Three

  Friday, Avon and Somerset Police’s HQ, Bristol

  It was DI Anna Gwynne’s second week back at work and at last, at long last, she was beginning to feel normal again. It had taken a while. She’d made the most of it though, especially the last few weeks. She’d eaten well, thrown herself around the gym, swum lengths in the pool, made sure she was as fit as she could be. The dark circles under her hazel eyes had finally faded, though it had taken four of the six months she’d been off work before they disappeared completely. The pain from the stab wounds and the bruising around her windpipe had long gone, too, but there were other scars that would take far longer to heal.

  Her attacker, a serial killer and rapist called Charles Willis, had been sentenced, but he’d only been caught after he’d killed four people and very nearly killed her on a chilly November day just over six months ago. In the slow weeks of recovery Anna decided she’d no one else to blame for him almost succeeding but herself. She’d finally seen through Willis’s clever subterfuge and had exposed his years of sexual assaults, tying him to several murders. For that she’d been lauded. But her procrastination, her self-doubt, had almost got her killed. There was a lesson to be learned there.

  She gave evidence at his trial before her return to work. Willis was charged with four counts of murder, one of attempted murder and eighteen counts of rape or attempted rape. Anna described how Willis tracked her on one of her fitness runs, shot her with a veterinary dart laced with a powerful opiate and tried to kill her. She’d sat as Willis’s barrister, on the question of premeditation, cross-examined her. How could she be certain murder had been his client’s intent?

  Anna fixed him with a cold stare and said, ‘I can’t be certain. But unlike his other victims, I was aware of what he was capable of. Perhaps he’d only make that final decision once he’d finished stabbing me.’

  She’d found it an interesting position to be in, trying to be as professionally objective as possible to bring Willis to book while having a very personal need for justice and closure. The Crown Prosecution Service’s barrister was anticipating an indefinite term with no option of parole at sentencing. Anna would drink to that.

  Anna got up from her desk and went to the window. The way she held herself made her look taller than the five seven that she was. Her dark suit jacket was draped on the chair back, and her shirt – one of several of the white or light blue she usually wore to work – was new and still had crease lines from how it had been packaged. She’d cut her hair back-to-work short and her skin was a healthy colour from the hours of running she’d done over the last month.

  Outside the office in Avon and Somerset Police’s HQ, the summer sun was already warming the morning air, trying to make life just a little more tolerable on the western side of Britain. A blue-sky day with the promise of long light, tanned limbs and long drinks outside in the streets. Not the sort of day for contemplating mistakes or regret.

  Though it was now possible for her to go a day or two without dwelling on the attack, still a shadow lurked. A reptilian skin of memory that she thought she’d shed. And there was the paradox. Anna dealt with the sins of others like a butcher deals with cuts of meat. And, just as a butcher would, inevitably, get blood on his hands, she was tainted by the mental stains left by dealing with criminality. Yet they were nothing a good glass of Riesling and half an hour’s dreamy Pink Floyd, or pastoral folk ballads from Zeppelin, could not ease away. A trick taught to her by her dad.

  But since Willis had put his hands upon her, his shadow was always there in the background, like spilled port on a white carpet, resisting all her efforts at scrubbing him out.

  Because of him and what he’d done, for a while Anna had doubted the wisdom of the road she walked. Perhaps not quite an existential crisis, it had still involved a stepping back, a sensible weighing up of her options. She’d chosen her job because it challenged her and she was good at it. The possibility of closing a case, of helping a victim, of relieving a family of the pain of not knowing drove her on in some way that was difficult to deny. And what other job was there that allowed her to be her stubborn, driven, analytical self and encourage her to use those traits? She couldn’t think of one. Slowly, as the weeks of recovery passed, her doubts had faded until, at last, she’d got the all-clear from the medics and here she was.

  In early as always, she turned from the window in the open-plan office of the south-west Major Crimes Review Task Force, and sat, hip on a desk, looking at the whiteboard and the pinned photographs from the reactivated cold cases the team had been pursuing while she was away. Set up, as with many forces, in response to advancements in DNA techniques, the team was tasked with seeing if fresh eyes and technology could solve some of the region’s unsolved cases. Murder and rape were high on the agenda; and these had become Anna’s bitter bread and butter.

  One such case was the rape of a young woman in 1983 near the racecourse on the outskirts of Bath. Lucy Bright survived, but her life had been blighted ever since. She’d never married and was not in a steady relationship. The attacker’s violations had left, as so often happened, the kind of deep and irreparable psychological damage that some victims were simply unable to overcome. Justice meant a lot to these people – offering a chance for them to draw a line in the sand from where they might start again – and its absence festered like an open wound.

  At the time of the attack on Lucy Bright a significant amount of evidence and samples had been collected, including the attacker’s semen, but little had been made of those at the time. Analysis of these samples would not have included DNA. But with the establishment of the National DNA database in the early 1990s, samples in historically unsolved cases could be reanalysed and compared with newly acquired data. The samples from Lucy Bright’s case were logged but yielded no results initially because the perpetrator’s DNA was not in that database for a match to be made. For years, her attacker remained at large, dodging justice’s bullet.

  But bullets could ricochet.

  In March 2017, a DNA sample from a drink-driving offence was loaded onto the system and threw up a partial match of sixteen alleles out of a possible twenty-four tested. Callum Morton, aged nineteen, had not been alive at the time of the rape in 1983, but the match was close enough to suggest that a relative of his could have been involved. Anna’s team was alerted, the cold case their responsibility, and two men were now suspects: Morton’s father, Peter, a fifty-three-year-old paramedic, and his fifty-five-year-old uncle Dominick, a businessman with several properties abroad. Neither man was aware that familial tracing was slowly closing a ring around them.

  Justin Holder and Ryia Khosa, the squad’s DCs, had worked up the case in exemplary fashion in Anna’s absence. They had enough evidence to question both men, but Superintendent Rainsford, Anna’s commander, was wary. If they interviewed the wrong man, there was a chance he might alert his brother. Rainsford did not want this to turn into a messy international manhunt involving Europol.

  Typically, the squad had at least three cases running, each member of the team involved to varying degrees with tails on half a dozen more needing to be tied off. But all would be at different degrees of maturity with one usually dominating, according to the progress it was making.

  The second case was much more challenging and a stark contrast to the evidence-rich case of Lucy Bright.

  Rosie Dawson had been abducted and murdered in 2008 at just ten years old. The image pinned to the board, a posed school photograph taken a few months before her life was so brutally ended, revealed a happy little girl with missing front teeth, oblivious to everything except the need to show the world how big her smile was. Rosie wore glasses to treat a squint, a red V-neck school sweater and a
tie knotted tightly at the collar of her white school blouse. Anna couldn’t help but smile when she looked at it, but within seconds a flood of anger would follow. But that was OK. Anger was good. She could channel that mental energy. And that was one of the things she could gladly give these innocents. Her energy.

  Even so, Rosie’s case was proving to be exceptionally challenging. Anna stared at the image, feeling the dull anger pulse, absorbing it and letting it direct her thoughts.

  Child abductions were on the rise in the UK. Stranger abductions made up about 40%. Almost fifty abductions, or attempted abductions, took place every year and were inevitably sexually motivated. Three-quarters of them failed; kids were wary. Every child knew the watchwords Stranger Danger, and yet being forced or invited into cars was still the commonest method.

  Thankfully, the high-profile cases were still rare but fifty cases a year meant four a month. And this month was no exception. Just that morning Anna got up to find every news bulletin showing another horror story. Young Blair Smeaton from Edinburgh, taken and still missing. She knew they had a separate word for it up there: abduction of under twelves was known as plagium. It was on the books as a defined common-law offence. Today was day two of Blair’s abduction, and she didn’t envy Police Scotland the task. They’d have the paedophile unit on-board and would be liaising with child-protection to make sure Blair wasn’t on any of their lists. They’d have queried the Police National Computer for known offenders, using extended search terms to link to the MO. Press appeals had already gone out for anyone with any information. They’d have a POLSA, a police search advisor, coordinating the search and bodies on the ground doing house to house. It was protocol. What Avon and Somerset would have done when Rosie went missing.

  Rosie’s photo had been up for only a few days, posted on the whiteboard by Trisha Spedding, the squad’s civilian analyst, and already her face was haunting Anna’s dreams. The unsolved murder had been plucked from the cold case files at Superintendent Rainsford’s request. Some new information had come to light. The force’s Hi-Tech unit thought they might have a lead from some images located on a computer file found by Belgian police. But, like all cold cases, it was taking a while to get to grips with it. They’d been frustrated by bureaucracy already, waiting for paper files to come from the force’s offsite storage facility. Whoever had carried out the last review had managed to split the file and the Records Management team were having a hard time pulling things together.

  Had she lived, Rosie would now be a teenager, pining no doubt for some boy band member, working out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. All of that had been stolen from her by a monster who had grabbed her cruelly from the very arms of her family and ended her life in the most brutal way.

  And to top it all, this investigation had an added wrinkle. A new team member was doing the work-up at Rainsford’s insistence. Detective Sergeant Dave Woakes had joined three weeks before Anna’s return and appeared to have found his feet quickly. Rainsford had taken one look at Anna on her first day back and used words like, ‘Ease back into the swing of things,’ and, ‘Let someone else take the weight,’ with a look in his eye that said this was an order rather than a suggestion.

  But Anna was finding it very difficult. Taking a back seat had never been her forte. Plus, they’d yet to get to grips with understanding the significance of the image the Belgian police had found. It was a combustible mixture that drove her exasperation level up from a slow simmer to a low boil over the last couple of days. Her easing-back-in period was well and truly over. The tricky bit would be not treading on too many toes.

  Anna’s approach to any cold case, taught to her by her old boss, Ted Shipwright, was to treat each one as if it had happened yesterday. It needed enthusiasm and urgency and fresh eyes, and a soupçon of anger did no harm either. She had no difficulty bringing a barrow load of all that back to the team.

  By eight the squad room was full. Holder called out a cheery hello, looking like a twelve-year-old with large-framed glasses, a clean shave and close-cropped hair. He wore a suit half a size too small for him, as was the fashion. Khosa, her dark hair glossy and sharply cut, like her suit, went straight to her desk and dumped a large handbag onto it. It jangled as it settled.

  ‘What have you got in there, Ryia?’ Anna said.

  ‘Just the basics, ma’am. Plus, I’ve had another set of keys cut for my brother, who is staying with me for a week.’

  ‘No,’ said Holder, pulling out a front pocket wallet and a phone. ‘These are the basics. I picked your bag up the other day. It’s like four kilos.’

  Anna grinned. ‘Your brother on holiday?’

  ‘No. Off to uni in October. Just visiting his big sis.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Really well. He’s drunk all the milk already and doesn’t know what a washing machine is.’ She sat, giving both Holder and Anna a forced, over-bright smile.

  Trisha Spedding arrived a minute later. An attractive forty-something in a business suit and three-inch heels, she was the civilian analyst on Anna’s team. Immediately she sat down, took off her heels and put on a pair of Nikes. She’d told Anna that on average she walked 5 kilometres a day at work and might as well do it in comfort.

  Anna smiled. This was her team.

  Before Trisha’s laces were done up, DS Woakes came in through the door backwards, a cardboard tray of coffees in one hand. Not as tall as Holder, Woakes was compact and fit with a football player’s quick reactions. He’d come to the squad from Leicester, where he’d worked drugs and serious crimes, but he was an Essex man by origin and the flat words, the ‘mates’ and the ‘yeahs’ peppered his sentences when he got excited. This was his first sergeant’s post and everything about him suggested a kind of suppressed energy, like a shaken bottle of Dr Pepper with the top still on, ready to froth up with one twist. He was quick to smile and just as quick to lose it if he thought you weren’t looking. Anna had heard he was good at his job, but she wasn’t sure how good he was with people.

  ‘Right, ma’am, Americano with one sweetener; Justin flat white with one sugar; Trisha tea, milk only; and Ryia, espresso, no sugar. Bosh.’ Woakes entered the squad room with a big smile.

  ‘None for you, Dave?’ Anna asked when the drinks were distributed.

  ‘Nah, try not to. Sends me a bit twitchy does caffeine. Just water while I’m training for the Ironman.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Anna remembered. Woakes was one of those. No longer playing competitive sports, he competed with himself in punishing training regimens and even more punishing endurance competitions like Tough Mudder and Ironman. The modern-day equivalent of self-flagellation.

  Anna stood at the end of the squad room, next to the whiteboard and her office, a small glass box that had been Ted Shipwright’s up until a few months ago. She was still having problems coming to terms with the fact that it was now hers. Rainsford made her promotion permanent as soon as she’d arrived back from sick leave.

  ‘OK,’ Anna called everyone to order. ‘Let’s start with Lucy Bright.’

  Khosa and Holder exchanged glances, Holder shrugged, Khosa stood up.

  ‘Trisha’s checked with the golf club, ma’am. Dominick Morton’s booked in with a foursome teeing off at nine.’

  On Saturday mornings, Dominick Morton, the businessman brother, played golf at a club in Nailsea. Anna knew only one sure way of finding out which man was the perpetrator, and if they were careful enough, they could do it without either of them knowing.

  Anna nodded. ‘And how did you manage it without arousing too much suspicion?’

  ‘Trisha?’ Khosa looked towards the analyst, who coloured immediately.

  ‘Said I’d found a personalised golf club cover and asked if a D. Morton was playing there this weekend so I could bring it in. They were very accommodating.’

  Anna smiled and nodded. Trisha was a gem.

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ Woakes said.

  ‘We’re going for l
unch,’ Khosa said. ‘Morton usually has a sandwich and a pint after a round. We’ll watch when he goes out for a cigarette. Justin will follow him out for a vape.’

  ‘Do you vape?’ Anna asked Holder.

  ‘No, ma’am. But my cousin does and he’s got me some nicotine-free juice.’

  ‘So then?’

  ‘With a bit of luck, we’ll get the stub Morton has smoked and—’

  ‘Do you want me there?’ Woakes cut in.

  ‘No, it’ll be fine, sarge,’ Holder said.

  ‘Happy to come along,’ Woakes persisted.

  Anna shook her head. ‘No need to baby them, Dave. Besides, I can only swing overtime for two. And I trust them.’

  Woakes nodded. He looked a little disappointed.

  Keen, this one.

  ‘Thanks, Ryia,’ Anna said. ‘Dave, you’re up. Tell us about Rosie Dawson.’

  Trisha said, ‘You’ll be glad to know we finally got the files late yesterday afternoon and I emailed a summary over to Sergeant Woakes. I’ve got copies here.’ She handed out some folders.

  Woakes stood. He’d taken off his jacket and his shirt was open at the collar, his ID badge hanging on a navy lanyard. In his hand was a blue plastic folder. From this he took several photographs and began pinning them up on the board under Rosie’s happy face.

  ‘June 6 2008. Ten-year-old Rosie and her grandmother, Grace Dawson, were walking home from school through a park in Clevedon, not more than seven miles from where we sit. It was about four thirty, the park wasn’t busy. On the way home, they took the woods path behind Highdale Avenue.’