PRAISE FOR
DAVID STUART DAVIES
‘David Stuart Davies knows how to write and how to twist the knife in the reader’s mind.’
Peter James on Innocent Blood
‘It’s dark but delicious.’
Gyles Brandreth on Brothers in Blood
‘I loved each chronicle, they were each very different and showed David Stuart Davies’ talent for creating well-rounded characters in seven different situations. I felt I knew Luther Darke after just the first tale but still had more to learn. A great collection of short historical stories.’
Crime Book Club on The Darke Chronicles
‘Charming, wistful and pleasingly nasty, as is only proper.’
Mark Gatiss on The Halloween Mask
‘One of the best Holmes pastiches of all.’
Crime Time on The Tangled Skein
‘I just can’t keep quiet about this book. It is a real page turner, an exhilarating roller coast ride of suspense, appalling crimes, hidden clues, with more twists and turns than a dark foreboding maze. Come! Join the chase … after all the game is afoot!’
Mystery Net Community on The Veiled Detective
‘A thundering good yarn … I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has an affection for Holmes and a good, old-fashioned page turner.’
Sleuthing the Shelves on The Scroll of the Dead
To Judy & Johnny,
shining lights in a naughty world.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
PROLOGUE
Autumn 1984
The winding dark ribbon of road stretched out before him, reaching into the blackness beyond the feeble reach of his headlights. The wavering dotted white lines were hypnotic, seeming to merge into one blurry trail, luring him into the dark nothingness beyond. He wanted to stop, pull up by the roadside and just fall asleep. Already his eyelids were heavy and his brain was tired. Anxiously, he ran his finger around his collar. Oh, how he wished he’d not had that pint of beer. Usually he never touched alcohol when driving. It was one of his rules. It was one of the company’s rules. And Daisy would go mad with him if she found out. But it had been a long and boring day and the bloody singing competition had overrun, keeping him waiting, waiting, waiting. He’d read his book, scoured the paper from front to back and smoked up. It was only to allay boredom really, he told himself, that he had weakened and had just the one pint. Just the one. To whet his whistle. But now he wished he hadn’t. He could still taste the bitterness on his tongue. He was weary and his fatigue was joining forces with the alcohol and the heat of the coach to force his eyelids forever downwards. He kept biting his lip to try and keep himself alert.
The dark, unlit, moorland road over the top from Manchester down into Marsdale undulated and curved erratically and it needed all one’s nerve and attention to travel it efficiently … and safely.
Oh, how he wished he hadn’t had that pint.
Most of the kiddies were asleep and even the few grown-ups on board seemed to have nodded off. There was no sound from them. He was alone with the drone of the engine, the thrum of the tyres on the tarmac and that damned winding road shimmering elusively out there in the black starless night.
Perhaps he should stop, pull up and step outside to grab a few harsh gulps of moorland air. That would help wake him up. Maybe, but it would wake up the rest of them, too, and make the grown-ups suspicious. Suspicious enough to mention it to his boss. To report him. Maybe some of them had already smelled the beer on his breath.
No, he had to keep going, staring hard, fighting the drowsiness and biting his lip.
The road suddenly dropped sharply downwards and as he kept his uncertain gaze fixed on the darkness before him, his forehead creased into a deep frown as he saw it in the distance. Lying like some giant amorphous white blanket across the road. Less than a hundred yards head, gently seething and writhing, waiting in ambush, was a thick bank of fog. Thin tendrils, curlicues of white, drifted away from the heart of the mass towards him, almost like arms reaching out in an embrace.
He gave a little gasp and, overreacting, braked heavily.
As his foot slammed down on the pedal, there was a high-pitched squeal, like the cry of a child. The whole coach shuddered and began to swing wildly as the tyres locked and slithered on the wet surface of the road. The vehicle had now left his control as though it had a mind of its own. He froze at the wheel as with some awful prescience he knew what was going to happen before it did.
The coach approached the bank of fog at speed, the braking wheels screeching along the tarmac, making the vehicle swerve and shudder violently as though some giant hand had grasped it and was shaking it. Suddenly, the rear end of the coach swung around to the right, colliding with the embankment with a tremendous crunch, forcing the whole vehicle to tip over towards the left. The passengers were flung screaming from their seats as the vehicle was swallowed up by the great maw of white fog. Still travelling at speed, the coach tipped over completely on to its side, sliding and groaning in a shower of sparks across the carriageway towards the drop at the other side. For a split second it teetered there and then with an awful creaking sound, it dropped over the edge and somersaulted downwards into inky gloom. The sound of twisting metal and of the chassis and body being crumpled on impact was mingled with the terrified screams and cries of its young passengers.
Within seconds all was silent. The coach was in darkness and still, apart from one wheel which still spun lazily. The driver, his head protruding through the shattered glass of the windscreen, still stared out at the impenetrable night, but this time with unseeing eyes.
CONTENTS
Praise for David Stuart Davies
Title
Dedication
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
About the Author
Copyright
ONE
She looked down at the dead little girl on the slab. Her little girl. The face all battered and bruised and those warm brown eyes staring up at her. They did not see her now. They would never see her again. For a moment she held that thought in simple matter-of-fact terms in her mind, until the full implication of its truth struck her and she shuddered, her stomach crunching into a tight knot. She had no emotion left within her to cry. That would come later. That thought froze her to the marrow. She saw before her years of deep sadness. Empty nights of fruitless longing.
Her baby.
Gone.
Gone before she’d had a chance to taste life.
She was tempted to reach out and touch the face of her daughter but she couldn’t. Her body was held immobile by the overwhelming pain of loss.
And then she was cons
cious of the policewoman by her side. The officer had moved nearer and had placed a tentative hand on her arm. It was, she supposed, meant to be a sympathetic gesture. A practised one, no doubt. How many times had she stood by a mother gazing down at her dead child? Just part of the job. All she really wanted was for her to confirm the identity of the dead body so that she could tick this one off. There were others on her list.
A flicker of anger flamed briefly within her but she didn’t have the energy to keep it alight. All her tortured emotions were swamped with an overpowering sense of fatigue. She just wanted to curl up in a ball and float away from the light.
‘Yes,’ she said softly at length, her voice a flat monotone. ‘That’s our Debbie.’
Our Debbie. And where was her father? She suddenly had a vision of him as she had last seen him, not an hour ago. He was sitting on the sofa, tie askew, a large tumbler of whisky cradled in his hands and his face red raw with crying. ‘I can’t go,’ he’d said, one hand ruffling the hair at the back of his neck. It was a bleat rather than a statement. ‘I just can’t see her. Not like that. Not now … not now she’s …’ He took a gulp of whisky and began sobbing in that strange silent fashion once more.
She had left him there without a word.
They moved around the house like ghosts, neither really taking any notice of the other: not talking, not acknowledging each other’s presence. They were dressed in unfamiliar clothes in which they felt both uncomfortable and unnatural. But then, she thought, what was natural about today? What was bloody natural about burying your ten-year-old daughter?
They were both ready an hour before time. An hour before the car was due to pick them up. After a while, once she had checked her appearance yet again in the sitting-room mirror, she sat on the edge of the sofa, ice-frozen, held still and self-contained by grief, while he paced up and down in his ill-fitting dark suit, like a caged animal, his body rippling with frustration, a rich mixture of heartache and anger. More than once his hand reached for the whisky bottle but he pulled back. He must try, for today at least, to refrain. These two individuals who had loved each other once, had been a close couple, had created a beloved child together, no longer recognised these ties. They were worse than strangers now. It was as though they belonged to different dimensions. The bonds had been fraying before the accident, but the loss of their little girl had severed the close links in a savage and irretrievable way. They could hardly bear to be in each other’s company now. They treated their sorrow as some kind of dark secret which they must keep to themselves and never, never share.
The rustling of his suit as he paced the floor and the ticking of the clock were the only sounds of normality in that benighted house.
And then another sound. Sharp knocking on the door. She rose from the sofa; he stood still. Neither looked at the other.
‘That’ll be the car,’ he said and walked out into the hall.
She picked up her handbag from the floor and followed him out.
The door opened in the gloomy hallway, allowing a shaft of bright daylight to bleach their haggard features. The driver from the funeral parlour was on the doorstep. He touched his peaked cap. ‘Mr and Mrs Hirst?’
The man nodded and gazed beyond the driver to the dark car parked by their gate, the car waiting to take them to the crematorium for the final goodbye.
It was early evening when she parked the car near Scammonden reservoir. The darkening sky was suffused with pink streaks in the west and the ghost of a crescent moon was just visible. Pulling up her coat collar against the cold air, she made her way to the bridge which ran over the motorway. Well before she reached it, she could hear the roar of the traffic from the M62. The air around her vibrated with the sound. The lanes were thick with vehicles now as workers made their trek home. She stared down at the parade of cars and lorries, their bright, beady headlights whizzing past. They looked so fragile, so vulnerable. One little error, one careless manoeuvre and tragedy would triumph. For a few moments she seemed hypnotised by this fast-flowing stream of traffic. It seemed endless. So many different lives on the move, she thought, each with its own joys and woes, secrets and sadnesses zooming by, under the bridge and away to a whole myriad of destinies. Have any of you lost a daughter, she wondered. Have any of you had your child cruelly snatched away from you? Do any of you know that kind of pain? She began crying. It was the first time since she had learned the terrible news. Some inner resolve had held back the tears. She had deemed it selfish. It hadn’t been about her: it had been about Debbie. But now was different. This was about her and if she was going to cry at all, it had to be now. She allowed herself that. Her body shook with the release of so much pent-up feeling. Turning her face up to the sky, she emitted a feral moan, like a wolf howling at the moon.
Gradually the tears subsided and a strange serenity claimed her. It was time. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, to clear her vision, with calm deliberation she clambered on top of the bridge wall. For a moment she teetered there, a gentle smile touching her tear-stained features. She was no longer in pain. She was no longer afraid. The smile broadened as she let herself fall.
TWO
Spring 1985
‘Are you sure he’s in there?’ DS Bob Fellows asked softly.
DI Paul Snow’s reply was a curt nod. It was, thought Fellows, typical of his boss, a brief, stoical, no-nonsense response given in a minimal fashion. Snow was not known for his loquaciousness.
‘What now?’
‘Well, back-up is on the way. I don’t think we should waste time. Let’s pay a call.’
‘Really?’
Snow repeated the nod. ‘Come on.’
They crossed the cobbled street and approached the row of terraced houses. These ancient properties had all seen better days but the one with the green door looked particularly worse for wear. The window frames were rotting and the hardboard facing on the door was buckled with age and damp.
Snow knocked hard on it and they waited.
Eventually they heard a sound within. In time the door opened a crack and a man’s face peered out. As soon as he saw Snow and Fellows, the man attempted to slam the door shut, but Snow was too quick for him and with force he shouldered it open. With a curse, the man stumbled backwards into the dimly lit hallway. Snow followed him in and saw that he had a weapon in his right hand. It looked like an ordinary carving knife, no doubt snatched up in haste from the kitchen table. With a gruff cry the man lunged forward, with the knife sweeping in a tight arc, but Snow sidestepped the blow. With a snarl of disappointment, the man turned rapidly on his heel to make a run for it but Snow leapt forward and grabbed his shirt collar and hauled him backwards.
‘John Andrew Beaumont, I am arresting you …’
The man had turned and aimed the knife at the policeman once more. Snow released his grip and stepped back to avoid the blade again, which this time missed his face by inches.
‘Fuck you, copper,’ snarled Beaumont, and once more he turned to escape down the hall. Again Snow leapt forward and hauled him back but this time he was not so gentle. Before Beaumont was able to raise the knife, Snow swung him round and thumped him hard in the solar plexus. With a muffled groan, he dropped the knife and his body folded as he slumped to the floor.
‘Get the cuffs on him, Bob,’ said Snow easily. ‘Now, as I was saying, John Andrew Beaumont, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Julia Beaumont and her sister Andrea. Anything you say …’
Later that evening Snow sat with Fellows drinking coffee in his office.
‘It’s a good feeling to know that Beaumont is locked up, safely stowed away in the cells. Crazy man,’ observed Fellows.
Snow peered over the top of his mug. ‘No, he’s not crazy. Most murderers aren’t crazy. They’re cunning and angry and driven.’
‘What drives ’em, eh?’
‘Ah, you’ll need a medic to explain that. It’s just a barrier that breaks down or a broken fence that tempts you to wander into a prohibited are
a. Most folk would ignore the broken fence, but some, some are tempted to pass through it. To trespass. It’s greed, fury, self-protection or simply pleasure that prompts them to cross the line, but once they’ve done it, they can’t find their way back.’
‘Like Beaumont.’
‘Like Beaumont. And others …’ he said, almost to himself.
‘Well, I still say they’re crazy.’
Snow gave a deep sigh. ‘Yes … I suppose you could be right.’
THREE
He sat quietly, his emotions firmly in check as he turned the pages of the small photograph album. It was a mechanical procedure, one that he had carried out at regular intervals in the past few weeks. It provided him with comfort and a focus, and in a strange way, it gave him thinking time. He desperately needed thinking time. Now that his life was in ruins, he had to decide what to do. The landscape of his existence had been scarred beyond recognition – nothing would be the same again – and he was unsure how he was to survive. Or if he wanted to survive.
He gazed down at the black and white photographs, unmoved now by the memories they evoked. When he had first started looking at the pictures, he had not been able to focus on them because of his tears. But they had dried up. Now there were no tears, no ache in the stomach, just a void. But he was conscious that slowly but surely something was creeping in to fill that void.
It was anger.
He welcomed it and allowed it to build within him, fuelled by whisky, until a plan, a dark and audacious plan, began to form in his mind. He kept running it like a reel of film through his mind over and over again. Each time it started from the beginning, presenting him with more details and greater clarity. The plan was being honed and polished and it was a plan that gave him a purpose again. He knew that it wouldn’t give him pleasure, but it would provide him with a kind of satisfaction and a sense of justice.
Innocent Blood Page 1