The Secret Fear

by Solomon Carter

  The

  Secret

  Fear

  A Gripping Crime Mystery

  The DI Hogarth Secret Fear Book 1

  Solomon Carter

  Great Leap

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  One | Early Morning. Day One.

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Turkish Airlines £111.00 | Corrections £4000 Istanbul | Total cost £4,111

  Fourteen | Day Two.

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three | Day Three.

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Epilogue

  Get the next book in the series now!

  The DI Hogarth Darkest Lies series - Hogarth series 1

  More thrilling books by Solomon Carter | Long Time Dying

  Luck & Judgment

  London Calling

  The Final Trick

  Also available by Solomon Carter

  One

  Early Morning. Day One.

  It was dark and Hamlet Court Road was silent but for the skitter of foxes and the coughing of a homeless man sleeping in the concrete stairwell at the foot of the hill. Here the old boulevard formed a steep slope, kinking down towards the seafront not far beyond. On the left-hand side of the slope Westcliff station was still empty and black. A bearded street cleaner in a neon orange coat wheeled his cart slowly up the hill, picking litter with a stick as he went. The cleaner shook his head, seeing another zombified drunk snoring in the doorway of a closed-down boutique. Almost all of Westcliff was asleep, but further up the hill, one shop was still brightly lit. The faint sound of Middle Eastern music slipped between its glass doors, and the smell of last night’s greasy chicken wafted on the air. The usual box of discarded food treats had been left by the door, the lid protected from the foxes, gulls, and cats by the same big stone which had been used for years. Inside, the shop was noisy. A man with a shiny bald head whistled as he clattered the back door shut behind him and pushed the coloured curtains aside. The man was busy, like always. He left the back door ajar ready for taking out the next load of rubbish sacks. His big shop was divided in two – a tiled waiting-cum-seating area at the front with a tall counter for placing orders. Behind the counter was a deep stainless-steel kitchen with a short corridor on one side leading to the back exit and the stairs to an upstairs apartment. Near the front of the vast kitchen, a steel and glass cabinet held the last of the fried chicken pieces from the night before. Baba Sen, the bald, bespectacled man walked across from the strip curtains, wiping the rubbish bag grime from his hands onto his apron. He cast his eyes over the unsold chicken and inspected them once more – just to be sure. Yes, yes - they would be fine. The kind who bought a two-piece and fries meal could certainly tolerate another’s day’s lack of freshness. Besides, throwing food away was like throwing away money. Baba Sen wouldn’t do it until there was no other choice. Even waste disposal cost good money, so the food box he left out front for the rabble always helped - what the council didn’t know didn’t hurt them. Baba was always clever, always smart. Some people had underestimated him, but never for long. The old man smiled at his nous and rubbed his weary eyes. This morning he felt woozy. He was getting older. He put it down to too many late nights working, just as his son had always warned him. But even so, he couldn’t help it. There was always so much to be done, and Baba trusted only himself to do it right. His son was a good man but lacked the willpower required for success, and his grandson wasn’t the kind to be relied upon. So at five am, Baba was still at work with a smile on his face as he sipped the last of his fragrant ginger tea. The tea made him feel good, but it lacked caffeine and today, my God he needed it. He felt tired and weak. Perhaps he needed to book a short break... as if that were possible! The back door clattered in the breeze, jerking Baba upright, reminding him to finish the rubbish bags. But first, some last-minute checks. The doner kebabs had been cleaned out, gone. The chip fryers were empty. Good. Baba sipped from his near-empty cup and looked at the tall steel fridges. Oh, tonight’s chicken was still to be chopped... he could leave it for the others, of course – Ahsen and Orcun – but would they ever do it as well as him? No. Baba had built the business from nothing. His work ethic was one of his proudest values. Work. Honour. Sacrifice. Defending what mattered. It was the only way he knew. In a proud reverie, he glanced back at the picture of President Erdoĝan and the Turkish flag pinned above his cupboard. What did one more job matter? What was the rush anyway? Yes, he imagined the president would have approved. The back door clattered again and Baba stopped whistling. He looked up. Something caught his eye – a dull reflection blurring in the fridge’s brushed-steel doors. Had something moved by the front window? Baba turned, but the street outside was still black. There was no one there. Not even the usual beggars coming for his chicken. He had promised a couple of them a little money to help with a task. Perhaps they had come early – far too early. Or perhaps it was the street cleaner. Baba pushed his cheap spectacles higher on his nose and smiled at himself. Yes, he was very tired today. His mind was playing tricks on him. These late nights needed to stop, but Baba laughed at the thought because he knew he could never give them up. This business was his life. He opened the fridge, pulled out the plastic trough of sloppy chicken and took the chopping knife and cutting board down from their place. The Turkish music on the radio changed to a mournful melody about a long-lost love and Baba joined in, adding his own tuneless wail. In the corridor by the kitchen, the coloured plastic curtain fluttered in the breeze. Baba’s voice wailed in a rising crescendo. He slammed the fridge door and paused as he looked into the surface of the door. The man had the odd sensation that something had changed, but he couldn’t tell in what way. It was a strange feeling, a little like déja vu. His brow dipped low over his bright eyes and the hint of a headache pressed in at his temples. He smiled on. He chopped the chicken in well-practiced motions and slopped the meat back into the trough, returning it to the fridge before glancing to the flag and souvenir photograph of President Erdoĝan. “Good night, Mr President,” he whispered. He dumped the knife and board into the deep sink then turned away to collect his things. When he turned, Baba caught sight of the dark figure standing by the light switches at the edge of the front counter beside another set of strip curtains, billowing in the draught from the back door. The stranger’s face was hidden, his back to Baba. Immediately the lights went off, and the kitchen was plunged into darkness. Baba swore and bustled through the dark towards the sink and the knife, but his eyes were slow to adjust and he felt disorientated. He stumbled first into the racks of grills and kitchen implements before his toe slammed against the tall stack of cooking oil drums. He groaned, a shock of pain stopping him as the big drums thudded to the floor and rolled away. Baba’s eyes started to adjust. The glow of the street lights outside cast orange streaks among the shadows. He saw the unknown figure lunging towards him. The man wore a beanie hat and a black coat or jacket, but the only thing Baba saw was the glint in his eyes. Two cruel pinpricks of light shone at him, full of rage, full of murder. The first wave of panic broke across the surface of his mind. His heart lurched, and he put out a desperate hand to stop the attack as the radio crooned on. Baba saw the knife in the man’s hand. A small thing and certainly no match for him if he could only get his hands on... Baba reached
for the cutting board in the sink, but the chicken knife was beyond reach. Instead, he grabbed one of the nearby grilling racks, unhooked it from its place, and swiped it at his assailant’s head. The attacker was struck with the merest blow. Baba Sen was scared, but his business came first. He had always fought for it. He couldn’t let them have it. But still the weariness crept in around him. He had worked too hard to be weak when it mattered. He should have listened. If he hadn’t had been here working late again... he had brought this on himself. Baba stepped away to take a breath, but the attacker pushed him hard and forced Baba to trip over his leg. Baba Sen stumbled and fell to the tiles face first. – his glasses shattered, his nose crunched. Tears of shock filled his eyes but as yet there was no pain. He blinked in a daze and felt the blood flow. Baba spun over to see a set of bright teeth snarling at him beneath those pinprick eyes. The man leaned down over him.

  “Who are you...?” said Baba in English. “What do you want?!”

  But the man said nothing. Instead, he reached down and grabbed Baba Sen’s thin neck. The old man saw the flash of the small knife in the man’s hand and, with all the fight left in him, he swiped up and knocked the blade from the attacker’s grip. It twisted away into the air and landed somewhere behind them. The assailant turned to follow the blade but lost sight of it as it clattered across the tiles and into the darkness. He growled in anger and pulled Baba Sen up into his arms. The attacker held the old man where he wanted him and delivered one punch then another, and another. Each blow met its target with full force. Baba Sen tried to cover his face, but his arms were weak and tired from working and the blows kept coming, knocking his hands away. The gloved attacker pressed a thumb deep into the man’s airway as he raised his other hand to strike. Baba felt weak. His head swam, the lights coming and going, melting into the darkness. His face was slick with blood, and yet the pain seemed dull as if he was absent from it. The old man’s eyes started to roll, and his awareness of the onslaught dimmed as he laboured for breath and the blows felt like thunder. The silhouette of his attacker seemed to bleed into the darkness until soon enough, the assailant and the darkness became one. Baba felt calm. He stopped fighting and smiled into the bleak serenity of the blackness. His limp arm knocked over the last stack of cooking oil cannisters and they clattered behind him, rolling across the floor, their blue and white labels spinning over and over in the dark. The attacker growled and hit the old man one last time. He shook the old man’s body hard until he was sure the life was gone from him. It had – almost. The thunder in Sen’s head had stopped. There was no resistance left. All was calm. Only the faintest smile and the urge to surrender. Finally, the darkness had won. The attacker dropped Sen to the floor among the dented oil drums. In the darkness, the man took a few deep breaths. He looked down at the floor, frowning, searching for the lost knife. But it was nowhere to be seen. Still, he had been wearing gloves – and he had been sure not to touch the knife with his fingers – hadn’t he? The thought chilled him. His eyes fell upon the strange image of the Turkish president, his eyes staring up to the sky like an image of some Turkish saint. The gloved man looked around. He had to hurry, but the deed also had to be perfect. He saw the light reflecting from the plastic chopping board. The attacker picked up the big knife from the sink and then went to the cash register. He prodded the knife into the gap at the top of the cash drawer and levered the blade back. Chicken blood slicked down onto the till and the cash drawer gave way with a crack. The cash tray popped open. He dredged a hand through the compartments, took what he found in notes, then pulled handfuls of coins free of the drawer and threw them into the air. Loose change; pound coins and other worthless shrapnel flew out and scattered across the tiles, landing like metal rain. He was almost done. The man turned back to see Baba Sen’s dead eyes watching him all the way. He made his way slowly to Baba Sen’s small body and crouched down, staring at the man’s shiny bald head then laid a glove on Sen’s skin. Smooth and warm. The man took a slow, steadying breath and positioning the point of the big chicken knife against Baba Sen’s scalp, he pressed and made a slow, flourishing turn of his hand. The job took no more than a half minute, but the result was well worth it. There. Perfect. He stood back, finally finished. The attacker dropped the bloodied knife among the scattered coins and fled for the back exit, flinging the plastic strip curtains out of his way. The curtain tendrils snagged him briefly before falling in his wake. A second later, he pulled the back door closed. In the darkness of the back alley, he stopped in the shadows. Damn it. He had left his knife inside there... What if he hadn’t prevented every possible print? What if one had slipped through? He looked at the back door. The sound of the street cleaner’s cart echoed between the buildings somewhere close by. The man whispered a curse and turned away, running quietly into the dark streets beyond Hamlet Court Road. Inside Authentic Kebab, a crooner sang his mournful song over Baba Sen’s inert body. And the new working day was almost ready to begin.

  Two

  “Hassle,” said PC Rob Dawson. “That’s what this is. Roly Smundle and Neville Grint are the two biggest wasters in Southend,” the tall, uniformed cop sighed.

  “And? We can’t just leave them to it, can we?” said PCSO Bec Rawlins. The young blonde woman was a good deal shorter than Dawson and her uniform was noticeably different. There were no black and white checks in sight. Instead, her peaked cap bore a plain blue band.

  “Do you really want to waste your time on them, Bec?” said Dawson. “There could be a genuine problem around the corner.”

  “We ignore it and it could turn into a proper public disorder. The parents from the toddler groups on St Johns and Avenue Road have been complaining about them for weeks. They get drunk, beg outside when the parents come to collect their children, and swear at them when they don’t cough up any cash.”

  “Seriously? They’re begging from skint young mums? That’s the stamp of Roly Smundle alright. Come on then, where are they?”

  “Right now? Outside the bakers and the cashpoint at Coop. There’s usually one on either side of the street – one to cover each cashpoint. But they’re really upping the ante this morning. They’ve been shouting at people who won’t give them any change.”

  Dawson’s frown deepened.

  PCSO Bec Rawlins was off already. She left Dawson in her wake, marching swiftly past the first shops at the bottle-neck end of Hamlet Court Road. It was quarter past nine. The cluster of cafes at the top were busy with all kinds of faces, ranging from the unknown to iffy all the way to very dodgy indeed. Dawson acknowledged one or two of the less troublesome characters with a cursory flick of his eyebrows as he made after Rawlins, who didn’t seem keen to wait for him. Which was another cause for irritation – because Bec Rawlins was supposed to be his girlfriend. As soon as they got past the bend onto the wider part of Hamlet Court Road, Dawson saw the problem. On the Coop side of the street, skinny Roland Smundle was sitting cross-legged in his vast black anorak, hood pulled tight around his face, while on the opposite side was Nev Grint, barking at passers-by with his gap-toothed smile, calling for change as if he was a market trader flogging a very good deal.

  Dawson saw a few women standing around in clusters on either side of the street, hands on hips, sending withering looks to Smundle and Grint. The women were aged all the way between twenty and sixty, and each of them looked up for the challenge of shouting the tramps away. The prospect of a slanging match didn’t look good. Talk about bringing down the neighbourhood. Or what was left of it. The owners of the nearby department store, Haven’s, the last relic of Hamlet Court Road’s bygone glory days, would have blanched at the sight. One of the most animated of the angry faces among the shoppers outside the Coop looked ready for a fight. She dropped her shopping bag to the floor and leaned towards Neville Grint, who grinned as he flicked his lank greasy hair from his eyes.

  “You say that again!” the girl dared. “Go on!”

  “Oooh!” called Roland Smundle, snickering from across the stre
et. “Sounds like handbags at dawn, Nev. I wouldn’t risk it if I were you, bruv.”

  “Handbags?” called Nev in response. “I wish I could get my hands on her handbag. I bet there’s enough wedge in that to set us up for a week.”

  “And so what if there is?!” snapped the young woman. “I don’t sit and beg for my money. It’s all mine,” said the woman.

  “Yeah! All from your latest giro. You’ve never worked a day in your life, girl,” called Roland Smundle. PC Dawson slowed to a halt beside PCSO Kaplan. He saw Bec had left PCSO Kaplan with the women, standing guard and trying to keep the peace, whilst Bec came to find him. The poor young PCSO looked nervous and out of her depth. She was a brand-new recruit, as green as they came. Dawson tutted under his breath. Typical. It was going to be a babysitting job, as well.

  “Nee nar, nee nar,” said Smundle, as he watched Dawson’s arrival. “Don’t do anything drastic, Nev. Hot Fuzz have arrived.”

  “You what?” said Dawson grumpily. He called across the street. “You want to watch your mouth, Roly. I’ve given you enough benefit of the doubt to last a lifetime.”

  “Yes, you have, officer,” said Smundle. “Can’t waste a cell on the likes of me, now, can you?”

  Dawson grunted and shook his head. Smundle and the local troublemakers knew full well about the lack of police resources and manpower – as well as any copper did. “

  You’re pushing your luck, Roly. I mean it. I hear you’ve been begging outside one of the playgroups. That’s low, even for you.”

  “A man’s got to eat, Dawson.”

  “And what happened to your benefits then? They sanctioned you or something, have they?”

  Smundle fell silent.

  “Didn’t think so,” said Dawson.

  “Hang on. You’re saying these two are getting state benefits and they’re begging on top?” said one older woman with a trolley bag. “That’s disgraceful. That’s disgusting.”