Dark Game_A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked!

by Rachel Lynch

  She went back downstairs and walked over to her mum, ignoring her sister. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’ll let you know what time I’ll be home later, I promise,’ she said.

  ‘I’m making you a honey waffle, Mum,’ shouted Nikki, prancing towards the kitchen. Kelly sighed and left the house.

  Her black convertible looked out of place on the little street. No one gave it a second glance in London, where three Lamborghinis might be going past in the other direction, but that was the difference between her old life and her new one: perspective. She had to slow down and strip back to basics. The last thing she wanted was to come across as the hotshot from the city who thought she knew everything. She hadn’t lost her northern lilt, so that worked in her favour. She belonged. Kind of.

  So far, she’d taken it slowly and tried to get to know everyone. She was desperate to get stuck into her own cases rather than looking over someone else’s shoulder as she learned new routines. Police work didn’t really differ from force to force, but processes did, and she had to get used to them. She’d been patient, and over the last few weeks she’d become more independent. It felt like all she’d done was read case files, but now she’d come up with some solid strategies to move a few of them forward, and this morning she’d share those with the team. She was buzzing at the prospect.

  She’d got to know the small squad at Eden House, and she liked them. The two young DCs, Emma Hide and Will Phillips, were hard workers, and DS Kate Umshaw was another solid and dependable local. It was always going to be quiet in an isolated provincial pod like Eden House, and there hadn’t been much to do. She’d got used to using first names, except for those senior to her, of course. She’d also been introduced to a few of the better-known local scumbags, though nothing too heavy. The DI helping her transition was Richie Park, and already Kelly rated him. He’d been a detective for twenty years, and he threw instructions about as if he’d been hard-wired to the computer and all the data ever inputted into it. He was a solid operator, and not at all erratic. Kelly admired his discipline. A few times she’d caught herself yearning for a gritty case to get stuck into, but she’d had to rein herself in and realise that life would be different here.

  It was a crisp autumn day and she could see all the way to Helvellyn from Penrith. That was a better view than a kebab stand and the smell of piss, she thought. The office wasn’t far away and the traffic was non-existent; another bonus of leaving London. Maybe she’d go hiking this weekend.

  Chapter 3

  The office was quiet, but several of her colleagues were already busy checking emails and making notes. Kelly’s last job had been as part of a murder squad of thirty-three officers. Here she’d virtually be on her own, with only her handful of detective constables to help out. But the change needn’t be a negative one. She’d been lucky to sidestep to detective inspector and she’d been given a decent reference despite all the trouble in London.

  ‘Morning.’ She greeted her colleagues and took off her jacket.

  DS Umshaw looked up from her desk. ‘Morning, guv.’

  As Kelly looked round, she realised that she appeared to be the last one in the office this morning. ‘Was there an early meeting I wasn’t aware of?’ she asked DC Phillips.

  ‘When there’s a progress meeting at eight thirty, we all like to come in early to make sure there are no surprises,’ he replied. Of course, she thought, impressed. She’d learned that meetings like this usually took place every couple of weeks, unless there was a major investigation on.

  She went to the small kitchen to make coffee, and took it back to her desk, where she had a quick look at her emails before going next door to the main incident room.

  DI Park opened proceedings. Like a lot of coppers, his voice was devoid of unnecessary emotion, reflecting the way he worked: consistent and dependable. The room was hot, an old heater belting out stifling air. Kelly was grateful for the warmth: she hadn’t yet acclimatised to the significant difference in climate between the north and the south, and the temperature had dropped noticeably in the last few weeks.

  They discussed several live cases, mostly burglaries and a smattering of assaults. She wanted to jump in, offer to take on the whole lot, but bit her tongue to stop herself. No one liked an over-keen newbie ruffling feathers. Soon she’d be standing in DI Park’s shoes, as he was due to move to the Lancaster constabulary. She couldn’t wait.

  Her mind wandered to one particular new case she’d been given, to go along with a cold case she was working on. She couldn’t help thinking about it when she should be concentrating on the meeting.

  A baby had been abandoned outside the White Lion pub in Patterdale; they’d found the mother a mile away, curled up alongside a small package of clothes at the foot of a path leading to the old lead mine up past the wind turbines. Both had been taken to the Penrith and Lakes Hospital, where the mother was in a critical condition. The baby, whom the nurses had named Dale, after the beautiful valley in which he’d been found, was thriving, however. The problem was that the woman spoke no English and no one knew who she was or where she came from.

  That was what Kelly had been discussing last night with Johnny, who’d been part of the rescue effort to find the mother. Although they’d suspected she might be close by, the fact that the baby had been abandoned near one of the major routes up to the popular Helvellyn range had set alarm bells ringing, and so the Patterdale Mountain Rescue had been called in as a precaution. Mountain rescue guys were all volunteers, and Kelly wondered now how Johnny supported himself. Her imagination fancied him a fugitive sitting on millions, but that was just for story books. She knew he’d been in the army, and so perhaps he had a decent pension.

  DI Park interrupted her musings to ask her about her schedule for the day, and Kelly made her first contribution to the meeting. She spoke confidently, but it belied her slight nerves. Park was a decent guy and he’d babysat her somewhat up until now. She wanted to prove to him that she could be left alone. She also wanted to prove that she fitted in. He was off on leave in two days’ time, and then she’d be on her own.

  ‘Morning, everyone. I’m still on the cold case that I’ve been working, I also plan to go to the Penrith and Lakes Hospital at some point to interview the mother of baby Dale.’

  Everyone knew the case: it was all over the local news and had even made the nationals. It was a big story but, despite its high profile, no one had come forward with information about who the woman might be. Initially the case hadn’t sounded as though it merited the involvement of a DI, but Kelly concluded that Park was testing her. She’d need a few DCs to help out, so that would be her opportunity to make allies and also try out her new authority. ‘I’d like to get a language expert in to see her, but she’s not in a stable enough condition to be spoken to yet. She’s still in shock and dehydrated. As soon as I find out where she’s from, I can start to ask some questions.’

  Her colleagues all nodded, and Park added the information to his iPad. They all carried them, protected by tough covers, as coppers were notorious for dropping them.

  ‘She’ll have to be arrested, but that can wait,’ Kelly continued. Abandoning a minor was a criminal offence, which was why it had landed on the desk of a detective. It was her job to find out whether any other offence had been committed.

  ‘As I said, I’ve also got the Lottie Davis cold case that’s been reopened, and I’d appreciate anything you guys remember about it,’ she concluded.

  A heaviness settled on the room and a few officers bowed their heads. Ten-year-old Lottie Davis had gone missing from Haweswater five years ago. The family had been on a walk to spot golden eagles nesting there – the only ones in England. Haweswater was a dramatically isolated landscape of fells, bogs and heathland surrounding the lake itself, and the family hadn’t sensed any danger. Her disappearance had led to one of the biggest public searches in UK history, with five hundred volunteers picking over the surrounding area, but they’d found nothing. The story had captured the heart
s of the nation, keeping people glued to their TVs.

  ‘I note here that the dad was a suspect for a while, but I thought he was out walking with them.’

  ‘He was,’ said Park. ‘I wasn’t on the case, but I gather it was more to do with his attempt to omit certain details that stalled the subsequent inquiry.’

  ‘A lot of time was spent building a case against the father, but reading the file, the paedophile angle looks more promising. I’m looking into that, especially the ring in Liverpool: the Harry Chase lead,’ said Kelly.

  Park nodded. ‘Take your time and get stuck in. The fact that the case remains unsolved after five years has frustrated everyone. Especially the mother, of course. She still lives in Ambleside. Merseyside are always helpful; they’ll tell you everything you need to know about Chase. Wasn’t there some con in prison bragging about it?’

  ‘Yes, it says in the file that during searches for known, active and incarcerated paedophiles, they came across a prisoner in Strangeways who worked for Chase. He allegedly claimed that Lottie had been stolen “to order”. The trail went dead, although Chase did serve two years of a four-year sentence for possession of indecent images. He was inside at the time of Lottie’s disappearance, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t arrange it.’

  ‘Wasn’t the senior investigating officer at the time DCI Thomas?’ Park asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ve spoken to him. He’s retired. That was his last case: not a great way to end a career.’

  Everyone nodded in agreement. Lottie’s body had been found a few weeks after her disappearance by a fell runner twenty miles away, near Ullswater. She’d been raped and strangled. There must have been a gold mine of forensics, but in the end, no one was ever charged. Kelly knew that she could spend hours looking for mistakes in the initial inquiry, but she had decided she’d rather investigate it with fresh eyes, treating it as a new case.

  ‘Well, like I said, you’ve got everybody’s support,’ Park told her. ‘It’s a case I’d like to see closed.’

  The meeting lasted another twenty minutes. Back at her desk, Kelly opened the file and looked at the photo of Lottie Davis. The girl would be sitting her GCSEs now. She made a note of the coroner’s name and found his report on the computer.

  It had taken three separate lab tests, and a lot of money, to finally isolate DNA on Lottie’s body. The information exonerated the father, but it was too late: the suspicion had been too much and he killed himself the following year. Kelly looked up the mother’s address in Ambleside. She fancied a drive; it would be good to get out of the office. She called ahead, and Jenny Davis told her she was available to see her this afternoon. Five years was a long time to a police department, but not to the mother of a brutalised child.

  In London, Kelly’s every move was accounted for, but here officers came and went as they needed to, as long as they informed their colleagues and kept HOLMES updated. The system had revolutionised police work, bringing consistency and compatibility to all forces across the country. Updated daily, sometimes hourly as an investigation moved forward, it had become indispensable.

  Kelly packed her things and told Park where she was going. The team had turned their attention to their various tasks, and he had no problem with her being gone for most of the day. There was an absence of the competitive edge that had pervaded her job in London. She was used to the odd detective – usually male – strutting about like a peacock, decrying the flaws of the latest crime drama on TV and offering their own superior theories instead. Kelly wasn’t above it. She’d followed the crowd to the pub to discuss cases and watched as old-timers waxed lyrical about legendary crimes. But it was different here.

  She left the office and headed to the car park. Her convertible 1 Series would get her to Ambleside, but it’d be a liability on some of the passes, and would attract unwanted attention too. She loved the car dearly, but she knew that sooner or later she was going to have to trade it in for something reliable and sturdy – another thing to add to her shopping list. She dumped her bag on the passenger seat and entered the address into the satnav, then put the roof down.

  The wind caught her hair and she turned heads as she sped along. Day trippers waiting for the steamers in Glenridding mulled about in the car park, and walkers trekked with sticks on their way to the countless trails around Patterdale. The area was one of her favourite places to hike: off the beaten track and not chokingly stuffed with tourists like the southern fells. From Patterdale, the whole Helvellyn range was accessible, and she could bag all the Wainwrights between Clough Head and St Sunday Crag in one day.

  It had been a long time since she’d driven over the Kirkstone Pass, and she’d forgotten how the tiny inn at the top was hemmed in by rock and cloud in all directions. The isolated pub had been going in some form for five centuries, and a few walkers could be seen on the hills surrounding it, no doubt looking forward to a pint at the end of a long hike. She imagined what it’d been like five hundred years ago, stopping here to break the journey by horse and coach, and whether the monks were inclined to hospitality.

  As the sun came out from behind a thick wall of white cloud, she took the road towards Ambleside and her thoughts turned to Jenny Davis. The woman had endured much; Kelly could hardly imagine the pain she must have suffered. She also wondered how Lottie’s older brother had coped, losing his sister and then his father. The family had fallen apart.

  She parked a little way from the address, ashamed of her car for some reason. It was as if she didn’t want Mrs Davis to know that other people still had the sort of lives where they could drive around with the roof down. In her experience, victims’ families suffered years of guilt, manifesting itself in the denial of any kind of pleasure. Joyless, that was how they seemed when she visited them. As if someone had inserted a tube and sucked away what made them human.

  Kelly had read in the case file that the fell runner who found the girl had a solid alibi, but she’d still pay him a visit later. She needed to revisit every detail as if it was a new inquiry. He lived in Ambleside too, which could be a coincidence or not. As far as she could make out, his DNA had never been taken.

  With any crime there was a window of time, known as the golden hour, that gave police the optimum opportunity to solve a crime. With murder, it was usually the first forty-eight hours. Details missed then could never be retrieved, and Kelly’s mission was to work out which direction the original officers had gone in, and what had been overlooked. Someone had screwed up royally, and if she could unravel the mistakes and go back to the very beginning with Mrs Davis, perhaps she had a chance of solving the case.

  Chapter 4

  Gabriela Kaminski walked to her local post office, as she did on the twentieth day of every month. She couldn’t afford to send much, but it helped her mother and her brother. Nikita wanted to know why he couldn’t go to work in England too, but Gabriela would have none of it. She knew that she could find a ten-year-old boy work here in the UK; that was the easy part. Protecting him was a different matter. Her mother was tempted to send him over, but Gabriela made her promise not to. So far the promise had been kept.

  Gabriela had enough on her hands as it was. She couldn’t allow Nikita to come. It was out of the question. She’d just have to send more money. She earned five pounds per hour, and if she worked twelve-hour days, seven days a week, she could clear over four hundred pounds a week and send her mother close to a thousand pounds every month. She knew that she could earn more, but she couldn’t bring herself to do what the last hotel manager had asked. He’d taken her out in his car for a drive around Windermere and she’d thought it fun, like a little holiday, until he’d touched her knee and offered her one hundred pounds just for one night.

  By using her wits and her smile, as well as exaggerating the language barrier, she’d stalled him with promises, given herself enough time to go to her small, airless bedroom at the top of the hotel, pack the few possessions she had, then leave through the garden without him noticing. She’d bee
n lucky. She’d gone to a hotel five miles away where she knew of others like her who worked in the shadows, paying no tax and doing what they were told. Her English was good and so she was a valuable asset front of house, where her neat appearance and pleasant manner fooled the tourists into thinking it was a respectable place. The Lakes was so full of foreign workers, it was hard to tell which were legitimate and which were not.

  At the Troutbeck Guest House in Ambleside, she shared a room with two other Polish girls who, like her, were both nineteen. Her intention was to return home after the summer, when the season slowed. She’d have earned enough then to go to Art College. She’d come back again next year by the same route: a car from Lodz to Berlin and then train to Amsterdam, from where the groups of migrant workers hitched, usually through Calais but more recently Ostend. Brexit meant that the cash cow might come to an end at any moment, and she had to earn as much as she could before then. She didn’t mind the menial work and long hours, but other girls were seduced by the promise of easy money. Some girls never came home. Some didn’t have a choice.

  Gabriela had rules: no drugs, no sex and no strangers. She only went places with people she knew, and she only took work by word of mouth. Instinct told her who to trust. She hadn’t seen much of the local area, but she had seen enough to understand why people spent so much money here. There were hordes of Americans, Japanese, Italians, Russians and Australians just dying to give away their cash. They tipped well, and Gabriela knew how to use her smile. It was true what they said about the English: they were the worst tippers and the most miserable of the lot; they were also the hardest employers. Her boss, Mrs Joliffe, exuded the air of someone who should never be crossed. Gabriela didn’t mind: she knew where she stood, which suited her well. The hotel was small and the guests were mainly middle-aged couples. She saw very few children, but those she did see, she spoiled. They reminded her of her brother at home.