by Mari Hannah
Dedication
For my very special sons
Paul and Chris
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Acknowledgements
An Excerpt from Killing for Keeps
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
About the Author
By Mari Hannah
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
THE UNRELENTING DIN beyond his cell door dropped out. It was as if someone had pressed a pause button inside his head. With the signal lost there was silence from within – no yelling, foot traffic, steel doors slamming, keys turning or locks driven home. Those noises were drowned out by the sound of a motorcycle throttling down, changing gear. There was no mistake. He’d heard it many times before. He’d been waiting, praying, to hear it again. If he was any judge, it was around a mile away, heading towards him like a bullet.
She was coming back to him.
Walter Fearon closed his eyes as the flashback began. In his mind’s eye he imagined her as he’d last seen her, sobbing as she left the wing. No furtive glance in his direction. No lover’s kiss goodbye.
Shame that.
He’d been on his knees scrubbing the floor as she approached the exit gate, close enough to reach out and touch her bare legs as she hurried off escorted by one of the screws. The scrawny git had his arm around her too.
That wasn’t on.
No, sir.
Bad news had taken her away, according to his source. The prison grapevine was all well and good but the gen it provided was sketchy. Unreliable. He sucked in a breath, smiling. Good thing he had alternatives.
He had to admit her sudden departure had shaken him up. As the weeks dragged into months, panic had set in. He’d feared she might never return. His heart hammered inside his chest and his hands shook now he knew that not to be the case. He craved her smell. Ached to be close to her. To engage her in a conversation – of his choosing, of course – he was good at the stuff she called manipulation.
Relaxing back on his bunk, he calculated the length of time it would take her to pass through security. He had it down to a fine art. He’d be at the window when she appeared on his side of the perimeter fence. He’d drink her in as she walked across the prison grounds, every step and movement – a couple of hundred metres of poetry in motion. It was time to execute his plan, something spectacular to regain the chick’s attention.
The razor should do it.
WHAT THE HELL were they staring at?
Hadn’t they ever seen a widow before?
Through her dark visor, Emily McCann could feel the weight of a dozen pairs of eyes following her as she skirted the packed car park looking for a vacant space. Keeping her revs steady, applying gentle pressure to her right handlebar, she completed a perfect U-turn manoeuvre, recalling little of the five-mile journey along narrow lanes from home, an isolated cottage in the Northumbrian countryside.
Her mind was on Robert and, to a lesser extent, on her only child. Rachel had begged her to stay home for one more week. But Emily knew that one would’ve stretched to two – two to three – and so on. A further postponement was in no one’s best interests. Let alone hers. She wanted, needed to immerse herself in work.
Stopping short of the gatehouse, she cut the engine and removed her gloves. Pocketing the key, she sat for a moment before pulling her bike on to its stand. Dismounting the machine on shaky legs, she took a deep breath, trying to calm the butterflies in her stomach. A sign on the wall welcomed her back to HMP Northumberland, a Category B prison, the most northerly in England, home to almost a thousand men.
More eyes at the windows . . .
More sympathy . . .
She couldn’t cope with sympathy.
Hesitating then, she was in two minds whether to enter the establishment or climb back on her bike and ride away. That wasn’t really an option. Now more than any time in her life she needed to work – if not for herself, then for Rachel. That thought urged her on, lingered in her head as she approached the gatehouse with a sense of dread, the thick metal chain firmly fastened around her waist feeling heavier than it ever had with each step forward.
Once through the reinforced security gate, Emily removed a numbered tally from the end of the chain, placed it in a chute in the wall and heard it slide into the well beneath. On the other side of a thick glass screen, an officer traded it for a bunch of keys. He smiled politely and went back to his newspaper without a word being exchanged between them.
Attaching her keys to the empty chain, Emily walked away feeling much like she had on her first day at the prison four long years ago: apprehensive, the subject of others’ curiosity, a stranger in an unknown world.
Was the officer in the gatehouse new?
Emily assumed so. She didn’t think she’d seen him before. Or, if she had, she couldn’t recall the encounter. Just as well. She didn’t feel like small talk. Maybe he was too embarrassed to welcome her back f
or fear she’d lose it in front of everyone. Even people she knew well had dodged her in the street in recent months, darting into shop doorways to avoid a face-to-face encounter, making her feel like a leper when she needed them most.
THE MAJORITY OF prisons are grim. Emily hadn’t noticed how grim until today. Today, the cold steel keys felt strange in her hand as she unlocked the gate to B-wing and took her first tentative steps towards some form of normality. Today she was seeing things in sharp focus, as if doing so for the very first time. Today, as she made her way past officers and inmates going about their business, things were different.
She was different.
When the commiserations were finally over and prison staff had returned to their duties, she shut her office door hoping they’d leave her be. Her desk was exactly as she’d left it on that fateful day: her blue cardigan slung over the back of her chair; the file she’d been reading still open at the same page; the fountain pen Robert had bought her abandoned without its top; a half-empty bottle of water.
Nothing had changed.
Why would it?
Life goes on . . .
For some.
2
THE CALL HAD reached the control room at 9.43 a.m. from a mobile phone. A child playing ‘hunt the dinosaur’ with his father had stumbled upon an exposed skeleton where a section of dunes had broken away and slid on to Bamburgh beach below – a horrific end to what should have been a perfect morning.
‘Definitely human?’ Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels asked.
‘According to first responders,’ DS Hank Gormley replied. ‘Then again, would your average copper know a human from a Stegosaurus?’
Kate laughed.
At a signpost for the village of Bamburgh she left the A1 taking the B road towards the coast. It was a better road in her opinion than one she could’ve taken a few miles back – which meant she was approaching the coastal village from the north side.
Her new Audi Q5 handled well as they passed through the small hamlet of Waren Mill along a winding country road bathed in winter sunshine, a nature reserve and the sweeping sands of Budle Bay on their left.
The car picked up speed, climbing gently now.
Hank had gone quiet. Kate didn’t need to turn her head to know that he was fast asleep. He could nap at a moment’s notice, on a clothes line if he had a mind to. She smiled, keeping her eyes on the brow of the hill, anticipating the glorious view on the other side. She’d seen it many times before and yet it still took her breath away. And there it was – Bamburgh Castle – rising majestically out of the ground on which it stood, a sight of power and beauty, its distinctive red sandstone walls impenetrable to the enemy without, the royal seat of the Kings of Northumbria in days gone by.
Flinching as a bird flew across her windscreen, Kate slowed on the outskirts of the village to observe a thirty-mile-an-hour limit. There were buildings on her right. Some fairly flash houses. The Grace Darling Museum with an RNLI flag on top. Dropping a gear, she turned left into The Wynding and drove downhill past some large seaside villas, one particular art deco example catching her eye.
An overhead sign came into view, a warning: MAX HEIGHT 6'11" – 2.1 MTRS. And another sign: NO OVERNIGHT PARKING.
There would be tonight.
The car park beyond was a piece of pot-holed rough ground with a mound of grass in the centre but no vehicular access on to the beach. It was full of police vehicles, CSI vans, a couple of Area Command pandas and search teams waiting for instructions.
As Senior Investigating Officer it was Kate’s job to direct operations, tell them exactly how she wanted them to proceed.
She sighed, steeling herself for a long shift.
She’d planned a rare half-day – a swim and a sauna – then dinner with her old man on his birthday at the Black Bull in Corbridge, the Tyne Valley village where she grew up. Secretly she was pleased she had a good public excuse to cry off. Ed Daniels couldn’t argue with that, though she was sure he’d try. She’d fled their last birthday celebration – hers – for much the same reason. Only that wasn’t strictly true. In order to avoid a confrontation she’d used the excuse of being needed at the office, leaving him to finish his dinner alone.
A blustery wind whipped around the car as it came to a halt, shaking it like a toy. A man and a small boy Kate assumed were her witnesses were sitting together in a four-by-four with police insignia on its side. The child had a mop of blond hair and striking blue eyes. His face was pushed up against the window, staring out at her.
A podgy little hand appeared, waving.
Waving back, Kate turned away. She’d interview the boy and his father later.
The detectives got out of the car, put on their coats and walked the short distance down on to the beach where clumps of rotting seaweed rolled like tumbleweed in a desert landscape. This part of the Northumberland coast was stunning but unforgiving too, completely open to the elements. They had to shade their eyes from a sheet of sand being whipped along the shoreline, making wave-shaped ridges on the surface beneath their feet.
A large section of the beach had been taped off to keep the public out, an outer and inner cordon already in place. The crime scene itself was dwarfed by Bamburgh’s fortified ancient castle, inhabited to this day. Built on a plateau of volcanic rock, the magical castle had inspired many a film director to shoot there. But Kate Daniels was less enthused by the isolated location. This exposed stretch of coastline was more often than not deserted. If it was a human skeleton, whoever had buried the body there had chosen the spot carefully. She knew she’d have her work cut out to crack this case.
‘DCI Daniels?’ an officer in uniform had fixed his eyes on Hank Gormley.
Wincing, Hank pointed at Kate.
Realizing his mistake, the PC blushed. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am—’
‘So you should be . . .’ She was pulling his leg. ‘Don’t let it happen again.’
Relieved at having been let off the hook so easily, the constable lifted the police tape allowing the detectives to duck underneath. Kate scrambled up the dunes to where a tent had been erected, giving her DS a hand up.
Turning when they reached the top, they stood for a moment looking out to sea – a tranquil shoreline with stunning views over the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. A place of pilgrimage and spirituality, a tidal island, accessible only over a causeway, forever at the mercy of strong tides. A draw for visitors from around the world, Christians flocked there in their droves, using the island as a focal point. At school, Kate had studied the island’s long history, learning of Christian martyrs and pagan attacks, developing a fascination with Celtic Christianity.
‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ she said without shifting her gaze.
Gormley scanned the horizon. ‘Religious significance?’
‘First impressions are often the best ones, Hank. Hold that thought.’
Tread plates marked a single route to the crime scene tent. On this occasion they were probably superfluous but the detectives used them anyway. Showing ID to a uniformed officer guarding the tent, Kate entered first, Hank close behind.
The skeleton inside was without question human. Surrounded by golden sand and tufts of rough grass, it looked as though it had been carefully placed there, not just dumped in a hole and covered up. It was partially exposed: lying face up, arms bent at the elbows and crossed over the chest, one bony hand resting on top of the other. Some clothing was intact, a flash of red polka dots, a sandy necklace, a high-heeled shoe.
‘Not prehistoric then,’ Gormley said.
‘No . . .’ Kate looked at her watch, then back at her DS. ‘There’s nothing we can do here until Stanton turns up. Summon the squad and give the Super a ring. Tell him I’m setting up an incident room at Alnwick station. If the clothing remnants are anything to go by, the remains are relatively recent.’
As Hank pulled out his phone to make the call, Kate glanced at the skeletal remains. With no detailed physical descripti
on of the deceased to go on, she had the uneasy feeling that this case would run and run.
3
EMILY MCCANN SPENT the morning going through a pile of case notes that had been left on top of her filing cabinet. She was almost up to speed, having paid careful attention to the new and, by definition, vulnerable inmates who’d arrived at the establishment in her absence. Their sentences ranged from just a few years to life imprisonment, covering a variety of offences: robbery, arson, rape and murder among them.
As resident psychologist, Emily was responsible for the whole of the prison population – staff as well as prisoners. Just over a year ago, her office had been moved from the admin block to B-wing, a sensible decision given that it housed some of the most dangerous offenders, the troublemakers and downright disturbed. There was a downside. Although directly responsible to the prison governor, Emily now had to contend with another man, Principal Officer Harrison.
Pushing that unpalatable thought aside – she hadn’t seen Harrison since Robert’s death – Emily set about prioritizing the most urgent cases. Making a list of those she wanted to call up for interview, she filed the rest away and made herself a cup of tea. Then sat back down to concentrate her efforts on one particular inmate, a young man serving seven years for the rape of a woman old enough to be his grandmother.
Emily felt sick.
It had nothing to do with Walter Fearon’s heinous crime or the prison governor’s insistence that she treat him as top priority on account of his impending release. Letting a dangerous offender back on the streets was deeply troubling and required careful handling but that was not the cause of her nausea. No, the wave of grief came out of the blue – a panic attack – the first that morning. She knew there would be others. Despite her best efforts to suppress them, there was no escape, no rhyme or reason, rarely any warning. That was the way it was. The way it had been since Robert had been snatched from her so unexpectedly.
She wept, quietly at first, then in huge sobs as the floodgates opened. She wasn’t the only one struggling to cope. Poor Rachel had fallen spectacularly apart since her father’s death. She’d clung on to Emily before she left for work, terrified to let her out of her sight. Her moods were getting worse, her anger more potent. Her stubborn refusal to accept Emily’s suggestion that it was time to move on with their lives had led to hurtful accusations and emotional blackmail designed to stop her mother doing just that.