by Sibel Hodge
I smiled as I made my way down the steps to a basement. Everything was covered with the brilliant white foam, obliterating any evidence that the girl had ever been there. It clung to the walls of the red room and the holding cell, like the first fall of snow. Like fresh new beginnings.
Like light expunging darkness.
Balaclava Man hadn’t wanted any DNA or prints left from the girl to be found in case they could identify her – most likely because he didn’t want her to have to relive the ordeal. And also in case she could lead them back to him. It didn’t matter that the red room had been obliterated, though, because in the days that followed, we found evidence too sick and twisted to comprehend. Multiple recordings of the numerous live-streamed torture and murders they’d carried out, partially dissolved bodies of the victims found inside steel barrel drums that contained sulphuric acid. Nine women, four men, two children. Some had been reduced to just bits of skin, hair and bone. Only Tracy Stevens’s body was still in one piece, wrapped in plastic sheeting, no doubt to be dumped in a convenient location, thus ending the search for her and relegating the investigation of the Jamesons’ murder to a cold case. With no links to any accomplice, the Jameson/Stevens file would gather dust in a pile in a storeroom. I pondered briefly why Connor Parker hadn’t just taken the Jamesons’ bodies and disposed of them in the same way as the other victims, but that would’ve sparked off a high-profile missing persons case and we’d have come sniffing around his farm, looking for the elderly couple, searching outbuildings and land, and he couldn’t have that.
At that moment, I did feel something. I wanted to kill Greene myself. He’d miraculously gone off sick with a bad back when the news of Parker Farm broke. No doubt he was panicking, trying to cover his tracks, doing some damage limitation.
I went through the motions, gathering evidence. The full accounting would take months, but we’d begun to find a D-coin trail that led to some of the people who’d watched or ordered the torture of the captives. It would be a mammoth task to bring about prosecutions for all those who’d participated in the murders by ordering such abuse online. We also found digital communication links between Connor Parker and Lord Mackenzie but no money trail as yet. In the end, that didn’t matter to me. They were all dead so none of them would be prosecuted. I was more interested in Greene, but I still had nothing to link him to any of it and there would be no authorisation to investigate him through official channels purely on a hunch.
I needed help, because I wouldn’t let it rest.
I left Ronnie and Becky examining more paper trails and slipped out of the office on the pretext of getting sandwiches for them. I waited until I was out of the building and walking down the road before I called the number from the email.
Balaclava Guy picked up on the fifth ring.
‘Does that offer of help still stand?’ I asked.
THE DETECTIVE
Chapter 57
Three days later, I slid my key in the lock of my front door, craving a drink. I shut the door, loosened my tie and went into the kitchen.
I froze when I saw it.
As I stood and listened to the house for noises, I knew Balaclava Guy wouldn’t still be there.
I picked up the thick brown envelope he’d left me and emptied the contents on to the table. Then I grabbed a beer from the fridge, opened it and took a huge swig before slowly reading through the documents. Some of it I already knew, some of it I didn’t.
This is how the story went . . .
Lord Mackenzie was an old Etonian peer whose parents died in a car accident. At the age of thirty-three, he was left the ancestral estate, which comprised a Grade 1-listed stately home, a golf course, an island in the Caribbean, plus many financial portfolios. But he was a classic playboy, and his millionaire lifestyle slowly ate away at his inheritance. Last year, when he realised he was facing bankruptcy, he’d staged the theft of his classic car collection while he was conveniently at a charity dinner in London with bigwig politicians and royalty.
Enter Detective Superintendent Greene. After I’d investigated the case of the missing cars, I was getting too close to revealing Mackenzie’s own involvement when I discovered a classic car salesman who met with Mackenzie in the weeks before the burglary to set up the fake theft. Then Greene had suddenly quashed the investigation on supposed orders from higher up due to what he’d said was lack of evidence, the salesman suddenly disappeared, and Greene threatened me with suspension if I didn’t stop looking into it.
After Mackenzie collected on the fifty-million-pound insurance, he’d stashed some coffers away in an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. A bank I’d had no knowledge of. A bank where Greene also happened to have an account. Mackenzie had deposited a cool two million in Greene’s account shortly after the insurance company had paid up.
There was the evidence of Greene’s corruption in black and white, but how did they know each other? I’d found nothing to link the two of them during my own investigation into Mackenzie.
It was the final documents that revealed the answer. And I had no idea how Balaclava Guy had got hold of them. Photos of Lord Mackenzie, Greene and Connor Parker at their Freemason Lodge events, dressed up to the nines in tuxedos, wearing decorated aprons and collars and white gloves, arms around each other with beatific smiles on their faces.
I sat back in the chair, staring at the photos, a smile of my own forming as I reached for my mobile.
It was five thirty but a receptionist was still there, fielding calls.
‘Professional Standards Department, how can I help you?’ she asked.
‘I’d like to make an appointment with someone from the Anti-Corruption Team, please.’
With a date and time set for the following day, I wondered for a brief moment if I was a hypocrite. I shook the thought away, though. Yes, there was blood on my hands, but at least I’d done it for a good reason. I wasn’t squeaky clean but I wasn’t dirty. I wasn’t corrupt. Sometimes the right thing to do is wrong. There were different kinds of justice.
I tapped my fingertips against the evidence on the table and thought about another call I needed to make.
I took a final swig of beer, set the bottle down and dialled Ellie. I wouldn’t be joining her unit after all. I’d finally made my decision to retire. I needed a break. I wasn’t just disillusioned any more, I was bone-tired of the ways people wanted to hurt each other, and I was done with policing.
I’d be leaving a shitstorm in my wake, but it would no longer be my job to untangle it all. And at least I was going out in style.
THE MISSING
Chapter 58
There are days when I wake up in a cold sweat, the nightmare so real that I’m back there, in that room, waiting to die. And other days when I feel like Supergirl. I cling on to the fact that I survived. I’m strong.
I’m not giving up. Not going to lock myself away in fear of everyone, every look, every sound behind me, even though Mum would prefer me chained to the house these days. I get it. I understand her worries. But I’m not living in another prison. I had enough of it in the time spent in that cell to last a lifetime. They didn’t break me. They couldn’t. Only I can choose to be broken or not, and I’m choosing Supergirl.
The papers and TV have been full of the sensational story. Bloodbath Farm! they’ve called it in their gleefully macabre reports. The body count is up to twenty-one now. Twenty-one people lost their lives and I’m the only one around to tell the tale. Except I won’t be telling anyone. The perpetrators are all dead. The police corruption probe into Detective Superintendent Greene is still ongoing, but he’s suspended, pending further investigation. That detective who helped saved me is also helping the Anti-Corruption Team with their enquiries. They don’t need me. And now is a time to heal.
I know I’m lucky in many ways. There’s more of my dad in me than I realised. We’re all the sum of our experiences, and there’s no rule that says mine have to shatter me. They will teach me to be a better victim advocat
e instead.
Talking with Maya has helped, too. Helped both of us deal with trauma, I think. She’s a Supergirl as well, but I’m not sure she realises that yet.
Mitchell is spending more time with Mum. It’s a slow process but I think there’s something special there between them. Something that could last, if they’re prepared to give it the chance.
The psychology and criminology course is going so well. My grades are high. I volunteer with a victims’ support agency in my spare time. It’s my vocation. My life’s purpose, and I will not let my experience take that away.
You see, I refuse to be a slave to fear. I’m not afraid of the darkness, because stars can never shine without it. Evil can’t be driven out by evil. Only light can conquer it. The only way to stamp out fear is to trample it beneath your feet and dance on its grave. That’s the real power.
And maybe, just maybe, you can only truly understand light from the wisdom of darkness.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Although all events and characters in this book are entirely fictional, Into the Darkness was inspired by the horrific real-life investigation into Peter Scully’s red room in the Philippines. After an international manhunt, thankfully, Scully is now in prison, although he did escape the death penalty. For anyone familiar with Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, most of the locations in this novel are a figment of my imagination or a mix of places I know. If you’re interested in reading more from Mitchell and Maya, you can find them in my thriller Untouchable. DS Carter is also featured in Duplicity.
Firstly, I’d like to say a huge thanks to my readers from the bottom of my heart for choosing my books! I really hope you enjoyed Into the Darkness. If you did, I would be so grateful if you could leave a review or recommend it to family and friends. I always love to hear from readers so please keep your emails and Facebook messages coming (contact details are on my website: www.sibelhodge.com). They make my day!
A massive thanks goes out to my husband Brad for supporting me, being my chief beta reader, fleshing out ideas with me, and putting up with me ignoring you when you’re trying to talk and my brain’s overloaded with plot noise.
Thanks SO much to JY again for all your SAS advice and input, and for bringing Mitchell’s and Lee’s military background to life. You know who you are!
Big thanks to D. P. Lyle, MD, for all your information on gunshot wounds. And for all the amazing advice you freely give to authors from your blog and books.
Huge thank you to Jenny Parrott for all of her editing suggestions, and to Gillian Holmes and Ian Critchley for catching all the things I didn’t.
Big thanks to Emilie Marneur for all of her help, advice and support over the last few years, along with Laura, Sammia, Sana, Hatty, and the rest of the Thomas & Mercer team. It’s very much appreciated.
And finally, a loud shout out and hugs to all the peeps in The Book Club on Facebook, and to all the amazing book bloggers and book reviewers out there who enthusiastically support us authors with their passion for reading.
Sibel xx
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sibel Hodge is the author of the #1 Bestsellers Look Behind You, Untouchable and Duplicity. Her books have sold over one million copies and are international bestsellers in the UK, USA, Australia, France, Canada and Germany. She writes in an eclectic mix of genres, and is a passionate human and animal rights advocate.
Her work has been nominated and shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the Harry Bowling Prize, the Yeovil Literary Prize, the Chapter One Promotions Novel Competition, The Romance Reviews’ Prize for Best Novel with Romantic Elements, and Indie Book Bargains’ Best Indie Book of 2012 in two categories. She was the winner of Best Children’s Book in the 2013 eFestival of Words; nominated for the 2015 BigAl’s Books and Pals Young Adult Readers’ Choice Award; winner of the Crime, Thrillers & Mystery Book from a Series Award in the SpaSpa Book Awards 2013; winner of the Readers’ Favorite Young Adult (Coming of Age) Honorable Award in 2015; a New Adult finalist in the Oklahoma Romance Writers of America’s International Digital Awards 2015, and 2017 International Thriller Writers Award finalist for Best E-book Original Novel. Her novella Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave has been listed as one of the top forty books about human rights by Accredited Online Colleges.
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