Lethal Ties
By Helen Christmas
Text Copyright © 2021 by Helen Christmas
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this publication, other than those who are known public figures, are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or dead is purely coincidental.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Cover design by Helen Christmas
Photo by Annie Spratt from Unsplash
I dedicate this book to Graham
who played a very special part in its creation.
Prologue
PART ONE
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
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
PART TWO
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Tribute to Graham Levell
Prologue
St Richard’s Hospital, Chichester
June 2015
I turned to DI Fitzpatrick with a gulp, hit with wave after wave of panic as the contents of the press release sank in. But this story, this vicious slant on the truth, had been tainted with everything I had feared.
TEENAGER MUST FACE MURDER CHARGE
Sussex Police have detained a teenage boy for a series of actions that resulted in the deaths of two men. The sixteen-year-old (who cannot be named for legal reasons) suffers from severe mental problems which have been verified by a professional team of social workers who dealt with his care since early childhood.
On the two occasions he was placed in foster homes, his behaviour was deemed challenging, which at times led to violence. Early warning signs were recorded in 2013 when the police were alerted to an incident. Although no charges were brought, the damage caused inside his foster home could have been life-threatening. He has since been assessed with high functioning autism, but concerns remain that he may develop psychopathic tendencies...
“They can’t print this,” I started spluttering, “it’s outrageous! How dare he twist the truth, when he was trying to save my life?”
Three pairs of eyes zoomed in on me but of all the people in the room, one face stood out in particular: Hannah.
“Tell them,” I urged her. “Tell them about Sam!”
“I will,” Hannah nodded, “but first and foremost, we need to explain what he witnessed.”
A weight closed around my chest, every breath dragged painfully from my lungs while I struggled to grasp this most chilling part of the story.
“The party...” I could hear my voice wobbling, the horror flooding back in a deluge, but they had to know the truth.
Sam.
Suddenly I started crying, as I recalled how this nightmare had begun.
Maisie, Joe and Sam. That’s how it began.
We were three kids in a care home, too young to protect ourselves.
Three kids who were inseparable until the night Sam went missing.
And all we had ever wanted to know was what happened to him.
PART ONE
Maisie and Joe
Chapter One
West Sussex, February 2015, Four Months Earlier.
Of all the places my past came back to haunt me, I had never imagined it would begin along this unlit coastal road in West Sussex.
The A259 felt so much safer at night and with none of the surging traffic that besieged the main A27. Caught in the gleam of a crescent moon, the thatched eaves of the Oyster Catcher pub poked above the hedge line. Then without warning, the darkness thickened around me, a wall of trees soaring from both sides.
Hands tight on the steering wheel, I could have sworn the landscape seemed to sway slightly. Perhaps it was exhaustion, a week of troubled nights. Yet it all crumpled into insignificance beside what happened next.
A cap of blonde hair shimmered on the periphery of my vision, followed immediately by the unmistakable outline of a boy. I caught my breath. Hovering in the outer glow of my headlights, there was no question who he reminded me of; a boy of about eleven staring back bolt-eyed, his face frozen in terror.
“It can’t be!”
Jamming on my brakes, I heard the squelch of rain water under my wheels before skidding into the opening of an industrial unit. As I switched off the engine, I twisted my head around.
Where had he gone?
Braced on the edge of the trees one second, he seemed to have dissolved into the drizzly darkness. I was taking no chances. Hands clumsy, I dug into my handbag for my mobile and dialled 999.
“Which emergency service do you require?” a robotic voice asked.
“Police!” I started babbling. “There’s a young boy wandering about, on the edge of the woods in Climping. He looked scared stiff and it’s so dark! Is there any chance someone could check this out?”
By the time the call ended, I was quaking all over, every breath bursting out of me in rapid gasps.
I couldn’t have a panic attack. Not now.
But I could barely contain my shock, because that boy - with his blonde hair and an air of fragile innocence visible even in the half-second I’d seen him for - had jolted me hard.
He looked so much like Sam.
&n
bsp; Sam, who had disappeared twenty years ago.
******
An hour later the whole eerie event folded under a blanket of mystery.
They sent out a patrol car. The police had been thorough in their search but as I lingered at the roadside, gnawing my fingernails, my heart thumped against my chest. Watching the spears of torchlight as they cut through the trees, the scene had me gripped, until at last one of the officers approached me.
At least DC Mark Anderson was one of the kinder police officers, and blessed with a manner that set him apart from his superiors.
“Go home, Maisie,” he said. “There’s no one out there. According to the local police log there have been no reports of anyone missing either. No lost kids, no runaways...”
I felt my spirits sinking. This was not the first time I had called the police out under false pretences. How could I forget? I’d been swayed by a poster I saw many years ago: the NSPCC, advising us never to ignore a child in distress.
‘What would you do if you heard next door’s child screaming?’
Only a coward would turn up the TV volume on a remote control. Not me, though. I refused to ignore it, terrified to imagine that child being abused in some way.
Just thank God Inspector Burke wasn’t around to witness tonight’s episode.
“I-I’m sorry,” I choked, unable to think of anything intelligible to say, “but I’m sure I saw someone. I swear to you I’m not lying.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. He was looking at me intently, which left me wondering what he was thinking. Mistaking a three-year-old’s bawling tantrum for abuse might be understandable, under the circumstances... but not this.
“Is it possible you may have imagined it?” he pressed. “I should have asked you sooner, but where have you been tonight?”
I pressed my eyes shut in frustration. “Worthing. Our department held a fostering information evening tonight and I promised I’d help.”
“Fostering,” the detective constable echoed, “but this is exactly my point. From the very nature of your work, you’re in contact with vulnerable children, right? Kids from broken homes, who’ve been abused or neglected?”
“Not direct contact,” I corrected him. “That’s the job of the social workers. I work in a hub of administrators and tonight’s presentation was to explain the process of fostering to interested parents.”
“But you do get to read some of the cases, surely?”
“I suppose so. Typing up reports does give me an insight into the problems families face. Anyway, I left the building at 8:00 by which time it was dark...”
I broke off, a sudden shiver running through me, and as he shuffled from one foot to the other, I could sense his awkwardness.
How could I have got it so wrong?
I was convinced I’d seen that boy. A memory so crisp it flashed up like a beacon, as if those dark, menacing trees had woken some deep-rooted fear. Perhaps I should have stopped to think before I’d called in the police.
With my hand flying to my mouth, I suppressed a sob. “You think my work is affecting my judgement?”
Only the comforting pressure of his palm on my shoulder compelled me to look up. The scent of his aftershave merged pleasantly with the sweetness of peppermints, but something about his kind eyes had an instant sobering effect.
“Come on, there’s no need to get yourself into a state now.”
I took a gulp of air. “Oh Mark! I-I feel such an idiot! I wish I could explain this but what if you’re right? And if so, why would I imagine something so real?”
“Maybe you’re over tired?” he suggested, “and I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Maisie, but you look wrung out. Are you getting enough sleep?”
Staring back in shock, I mentally pieced together what I needed to tell him.
My nightmares. The suffocating fear I experienced every time I woke, fragments I remembered clearly, although they never quite reached a conclusion...
I told him as much as I could, and it hardly made sense to me even as I was saying it.
“That explains a lot.” His voice hung in the deathly silence. “You’re probably suffering from sleep deprivation. Didn’t you know a build-up of tiredness can make you hallucinate?”
“What?” I gasped. “You’re telling me, that boy was nothing but a hallucination?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he replied. “Now go home and get some rest. In fact, why not take some time off work and recuperate? Any problems, you know you can always talk to me.”
I had to praise him for his compassion. Following his advice, I drove on to Bognor Regis, where curling up in my own flat was the only thought that could bring any comfort on this strangest of nights.
My own home, my own space, my own rules.
Clinging to the coast road, I swung past Butlins, its distinctive canopy standing out like peaks of whipped cream against an indigo sky. I could have taken a shorter route through town, but found myself lured towards the seafront.
Rolling beyond the pier, to the Yacht Club, I gazed out to sea. How I cherished the expanse of space; the undulating energy of the waves as they lapped the shoreline. Tonight was low tide. Rows of rocks lined the water’s edge like crooked teeth, ripples of wet sand reflecting the moonlight.
Breathing deeply, I tried to suppress the storm of rising emotions. Perhaps tonight’s sighting was a hallucination, as Mark had hinted. Yet the boy at the roadside... his chilling resemblance to Sam kept haunting me, because Sam had been very real. How could I forget the care home where the three of us had met?
Maisie, Joe and Sam.
A yawn stretched my jaw, and tugging on the wheel, I spun away from the coast road to complete my homeward journey.
Just thank God they hadn’t berated me for wasting police time.
How that would go down with my employees did not bear thinking about: any exposure of my mental state would be a real problem. Working for West Sussex County Council in the childcare and fostering department, my job meant the world to me, and from that thought branched another.
As a girl who had herself been fostered, did they know I was undergoing psychotherapy?
My foster mother had suggested this a month ago, through fear my panic attacks and nightmares would forever hang over me, and sure enough, something dark had been prodding at my subconscious mind lately.
If only I could grasp what it was.
Chapter Two
Hannah Adams. Registered Psychotherapist and Counsellor. West Sussex.
Client: Maisie Bell
6th February 2015
“It’s up to you what you want to tell me, Maisie.”
The psychotherapist had smiled. A woman in her fifties, Hannah spoke in a way that sent soothing waves over me, her voice warm and breathy.
“All I’m trying to do is gain a deeper insight into the issues you face, so what’s been troubling you?”
“Nightmares. They started in my teens. I used to wake up feeling threatened, wondering if they would stop as I got older but now they’re back... I feel as if we are in danger again.”
“Who is ‘we?’” Hannah kept probing. “Is there somebody else involved?”
“Joe. He was my best friend.”
“Can you describe him to me?”
Her question drew a smile to my lips. “He was cute but in an ugly sort of way. Joe reminded me of one of the ‘Bisto Kids.’ Do you remember them?”
Yes, that was my first impression of Joe. Tall, skinny, scruffy with wires for arms and legs. His crooked nose might have been broken for all I knew, and with that broad grin and a chipped tooth, his features were far from perfect.
But none of that seemed to matter at the time.
“I felt lost. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I wanted to hide in the corner with my head in my arms, just wishing those kids would go away.”
“Yes, but don’t forget you had not long lost your parents.”
A lump of pain squeezed my innards. I couldn’t suppress
it, even though I thought I had expelled all that grief in my last session.
Reliving the hurt of loss, I shrank into a tunnel of darkness that even the brightest of lights could not penetrate.
My real mum and dad were killed in a car crash, see, and so was my little sister, Charlotte. I was in hospital at the time, having my tonsils out. To think, they had driven all the way over to visit me but had never made it home.
How could life be so cruel?
I’m over that now, though. It’s the stuff that happened since that scarred me forever.
“I loved my parents, they were good to me and I missed my sister terribly, but my grief turned to rage. I was so bloody angry, despite everyone’s kindness. Friends, neighbours, all fighting to look after me...”
“And you ended up in a residential care home.”
“The authorities got involved,” I spat. “People started to worry about my behaviour, but when the pain of loss is too much to bear, it’s easier to switch off your feelings altogether. I became withdrawn.”
I was determined never to suffer that hurt again. Never allow myself to get close to anyone or to love again. It wasn’t worth the risk.
Stiffening in my chair, I felt my hands coil into fists, my heart hard as stone. Such a feeling emanated from my childhood. I froze people out. Suppressed every human emotion and made myself unlovable.
“A defence mechanism,” Hannah placated, “not unusual, under the circumstances.”
“I know that, but I never meant to hurt anyone! Everywhere I turned, people went out of their way to be nice to me, and I refused to speak or even look at them. Then finally Social Services stuck their oar in. Decided it was better to put me into care. That bloody care home!”
“So what happened on the day you met Joe?” Hannah pressed.
Pulling my mind back to the scene, I felt the warmth drain out of me, because it wasn’t Joe’s face that rose from the void but all those other faces. Swarming into my vision like gnats, a whirlwind of hair, eyes and teeth. There was one boy in particular...
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