THE JAGGED LINE

by Carolyn Mahony

  THE JAGGED LINE

  BY

  CAROLYN MAHONY

  Text copyright © 2017 Carolyn Mahony

  All Rights Reserved

  The right of Carolyn Mahony to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher and author.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To my family, friends and beta-readers – you know who you are! Your support and feedback have been invaluable. I’d have given up years ago if it hadn’t been for all of you!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  PROLOGUE

  The vehicle ploughing into the back of his van seemed to come from nowhere – the impact of it shooting him forward, causing the engine to splutter and stall. For a moment, he sat there shocked, clutching ribs that were already painful.

  Before he had time to take stock of what was happening, the door was flung open, his seat belt unclipped, and he found himself being dragged out into the cold night air.

  He fought as hard as his bruised ribs would allow, his eyes fixing desperately on the illuminated police station up ahead of him. But when he felt the sharp edge of a knife pressing tightly into his neck, his struggles came to an abrupt stop.

  ‘You need to calm down, mate, or this is gonna get messy.’

  The words breathed into his ear sent a chill through his veins. He had no doubt the man meant what he said, as he found himself being dragged towards the dark car behind them.

  He had just enough time to cast a last, frantic look in the direction of the police station, before he was tossed head first into the back of the car, and felt the lurch as it sped off.

  ‘Hello, Paul.’

  He froze at the sound of that voice. The dark shape was turned away from him, staring out of the window, but he knew exactly who it was.

  His eyes widened in terror. He needed to get out of there.

  He heaved himself up to a sitting position and swung towards the rear passenger door, but found his assailant was blocking his escape.

  ‘It seems you didn’t learn your lesson from earlier on,’ the voice continued smoothly.

  Sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

  ‘And when I saw you heading for the police station … well, we can’t have that, can we? You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that tonight. You really are...’

  CHAPTER ONE

  Kirsty Cartwright packed her lunch box away and stood up on the sandy beach, flicking the sand off her dress. She gazed out to sea just one more time, enjoying the feel of the cool October breeze as it blew wisps of fair hair across her cheeks. It was a daily indulgence that the weather would soon be putting an end to, but she’d come to value this hour to herself every day. It was a chance to sit back and take stock if she wanted to, or simply drink in the rather indulgent ambience of La Rochelle.

  Today, though, her expression was tense and her thoughts were more focused than usual. The day of her return to the UK was drawing ever nearer, and it wasn’t a trip she looked forward to. In fact she was even debating making her excuses and ducking out of it. Would she even be missed? She hadn’t seen her family in nearly a year – admittedly her choice not theirs – and she wasn’t sure she was ready for this enforced visit. The inevitable questions from her mother and brother – the uneasy truce with her father. How much simpler life was without the mixed emotions their presence induced. Already the negative feelings she’d managed to put behind her these last few months were wheedling their way back into her consciousness.

  But it was her cousin Rachael’s wedding and they’d all be expecting her. And how could she let Rachael down? Rachael – who, unwittingly, was the reason for Kirsty’s self-imposed banishment?

  ‘Ah, it is only for a few days, chérie,’ Jean-Pierre had said last night in his thick French accent. ‘It is not so long – and you will have me there to hold your hand if you need it.’

  She’d smiled at him, wondering if he realised how much he’d saved her from going into a complete decline these past months.

  ‘I know that and you’re a star, Jean-Pierre. I don’t think I’d have managed without you.’

  He’d given his typical Gallic shrug. ‘Of course you would. I have done nothing except give you a job and some space in which to heal. Are you worried about seeing Luke at the wedding?’

  Kirsty shook her head, suppressing her guilt that she hadn’t given him the full story. But it was far simpler that everyone thought she was nurturing a broken heart – which she was.

  ‘Luke and I are over,’ she said. ‘I’ve accepted that because I know that what I did is the one thing he can never forgive. It’s my own fault.’

  ‘I think I will not find it easy keeping my opinions to myself when I meet him at this wedding,’ Jean-Pierre had responded severely. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance, but …’ He’d forestalled her interruption with a grin. ‘For you I will do my best.’

  Now, as she stared out over the water, her mind took one of those wayward turns she’d banned herself from taking, as she allowed herself to dwell briefly on Luke. Of course they were over. She’d seen to that. But it would be hard seeing him again. Had he met anyone else?

  She sighed, remembering that memories hurt, which was why she’d banned them. But it was too late now. Luke’s thick, dark hair, his easy smile and deep brown eyes, that could be both sharply intelligent and so heart-meltingly tender, were etched indelibly in her mind – the memory of his occasional uninhibited roar of laughter almost bouncing off the waves that lapped gently at the shore. She smiled, remembering when they’d first hitched up in the sixth form. They’d been the best of friends throughout their school years … sharing, laughing, talking into the early hours as you did at that age – but when the sexual attraction had kicked in, it had blown them away. The sheer intensity of it. They’d grabbed those precious moments together whenever they could, the
depth of their feelings given freedom to soar because of the implicit trust they already had in each other.

  A trust she had completely destroyed.

  She sighed. She had no right to be angry with him, she knew that, but that didn’t mean she understood how he could cut himself off from her so completely when they’d managed to defy all the odds of separate universities and enforced separations. Had he suffered half the heartache she had? Though it probably wasn’t very charitable to think it, she hoped so … surely the destruction of their relationship merited at least a bit of heartache on his side.

  She turned away from the shoreline and started to make her way slowly back up the beach. She’d go back for the wedding … of course she would. But her return could unleash a host of events that might gather speed at an alarming rate.

  And where that would end was anyone’s guess.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Detective Sergeant Harry Briscombe walked rapidly through the drab entrance to police HQ and thought, not for the first time, that this building was beginning to feel more like home to him these days than his own flat did. It was hardly surprising, bearing in mind the hours he put in, but it didn’t take a therapist to tell him that it probably wasn’t a good thing.

  ‘Morning, Amy,’ he called to the duty officer on the reception desk. ‘Anything interesting come in overnight?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing you’d want to bother yourself with, but I think Geoff put something on your desk after you’d gone last night that you might want to take a look at. You’re in early.’

  ‘Yeah … impressive if anyone was around to see it.’

  She grinned. ‘You’re right. You’re first in. You need to get a life, Harry.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Catch you later.’

  Up in the whitewashed, open-plan office, where he was lucky enough to have been given a prime position by one of the windows overlooking the car park, he poured himself a coffee, determined to make the most of the peace and quiet he knew wouldn’t last.

  In the next half-hour the room would fill up with all the different members of their team, and it would be transformed from the blissful refuge it was at the moment into the driving thrum of the Beds & Herts Major Crime Unit.

  He flicked through a couple of reports on his desk, but his mind wasn’t on the job.

  He sighed, running an irritable hand through his thick, sandy-coloured hair. Life’s path was made up of many forks along the way, everyone knew that. So the fact that he was facing one now didn’t make him unique – but it was costing him sleepless nights. He needed to make his decision – he was only putting off the inevitable. So what was he dithering for?

  He knew the answer to that of course, because once he made his decision, he’d be locked into it – and then he’d be faced with a stand-off he wasn’t sure he could handle.

  He turned his attention back to the report in his hand and read the brief, the title spiking his interest. Possible Kidnapping.

  Some woman claimed to have witnessed a man being dragged out of his van and thrown into a car. Someone else had then apparently jumped into the van and driven off in it. And it had happened last night on the road outside this very building. Murray wouldn’t be happy about that.

  No registration number of course and no descriptions worthy of merit – nothing to get his teeth into. He tossed the form into his Thinking About It basket. What the hell were they supposed to do with that, other than wait and see if a missing persons report came in?

  He looked up as the newest and youngest member of their team, Detective Constable Bethany Macaskill, approached his desk.

  She wasn’t your typical DC and he couldn’t help wondering what DCI Murray would make of the razor-short, auburn hair that stuck up in vibrant, gelled spikes.

  What she lacked in stylish hair, though, she more than made up for in enthusiasm and, although she’d only been with them a week, he was already impressed by her attitude and the attention she paid to detail. Those were qualities you were either born with or you weren’t, and they were an absolute necessity in this job. He had no doubt she was going to be a good addition to the team.

  ‘Morning, Beth. You’re as sad as I am coming in this early – or maybe you never got to bed last night after meeting up with your friends?’

  She grinned. ‘I wish. Even I’m too old for all that now. I need my sleep.’

  There was an air of suppressed excitement about her as she waved a piece of paper in the air. ‘We’ve just had a call from a member of the public... There’s been a body found at a place called …’ she scanned her handwritten note … ‘Gobions, in Brookmans Park?’

  Harry briefly scanned her notes, then jumped up from his desk. Related to the kidnapping maybe? Was that too easy? Experience taught him it probably was.

  ‘I know it. Want to come with me?’

  ‘You bet. I’ll just go fetch my jacket: it’s freezing out.’

  He liked the soft lilt of her Northumberland accent – not quite English, not quite Scottish – and he smiled at the thought that again it was somehow at odds with the spiky hair.

  She headed towards the row of pegs on the far wall and Harry grabbed his own well-worn, brown leather jacket from the back of his chair. ‘I’d have thought you’d be used to the cold, coming from Northumberland?’

  She laughed. ‘Yeah, well, that was a while back now. I’ve gone soft over the years.’

  When they arrived at Gobions Park, the car park had already been sealed off and apart from police and a couple of other vehicles, it was pretty empty. In the distance, across the heavily dewed grassed, he could see signs of activity.

  ‘Looks like it’s all happening over there,’ Beth said, following the direction of his gaze.

  ‘By the lake, then. I know this area like the back of my hand. My mates and I used to hang out here all the time when I was younger.’

  Beth looked around at the large, detached houses surrounding the open space and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re one of the posh boys, then, living round here…’

  Harry shook his head. ‘Oh no. I didn’t live round here. I lived in Enfield.’

  ‘You sound posh, though.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s what boarding school does for you. My father’s an archaeologist, so my parents spent a lot of time travelling around. That’s why I lived in Enfield – with my grandparents.’

  She looked surprised. ‘Do you still live with them?’

  ‘No … although that could be about to change. My grandfather died several years back so my gran’s alone now – and not well. I might need to move back in for a while.’

  The thought of his grandmother reminded him of his current dilemma and he knew he couldn’t put things off much longer.

  He unclipped his seat belt and opened the door. ‘Come on … you ready for this? Let’s go see what they’ve got.’

  The area by the lake had been sealed off and SOCO were already there.

  ‘Alright if we take a look?’ Harry asked one of the duty policemen, as he approached.

  ‘Yup. Forensics are already here.’

  He handed them a couple of white cover-ups for their clothes and shoes and waited until they’d donned them before lifting the tape.

  It was Edwards who was painstakingly examining the remains and Harry was glad. He was one of the more cooperative pathologists they dealt with, and knew his stuff. With a bit of luck he’d give them something to start on while they were waiting for the full results to come back.

  ‘Give me a couple more minutes, Harry, will you?’ the pathologist said.

  ‘Sure.’

  Harry watched as Edwards removed what looked like a couple of twigs from a gruesome stomach wound, and slipped them into sample bags. While he was waiting he made his own observations. The man was probably a year or two older than him, mid-thirties maybe, and shorter than Harry’s six feet, with a sizeable beer gut on him – he clearly hadn’t seen the inside of a gym in a while. His hair was receding at the fron
t, but what hair he did have was brown and wispy. His face, which was bruised and swollen, was covered in muck, as were his clothes, indicating that he’d probably been lying face-down in the mud before being turned over. There was a large patch of red that had seeped through his pale grey T-shirt, indicative of the stomach wound that was clearly visible. Harry could see no evidence of any weapon. It looked like the man had been beaten before being stabbed and left here.

  He looked at Beth. ‘You okay?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m just not looking too closely.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it. You have to if you want to be any good. No room for squeamishness in this job.’

  He smiled at her, knowing she’d take his words on-board.

  ‘Right,’ Edwards said, straightening up. ‘I’ve still got a way to go before I let the body be moved, but what I can tell you is that he’s a male Caucasian, early to mid-thirties probably, who’s been badly beaten, stabbed and dumped here within the last four to five hours, I’d guess. I suspect that cause of death was the stab wound to the stomach, but I’ll confirm that after I’ve done the PM. No ID or wallet.’

  ‘So that would be some time after four o’clock this morning he was brought here. How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because his clothes and hair are dry. And up until about four o’clock this morning it was chucking it down.’

  ‘No personal effects at all on him? Mobile phone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And when you say ‘dumped’ – was he killed here do you reckon, or brought here afterwards?’

  ‘I’ll have to check a few things out to be sure but my guess is the latter. For a start there aren’t any signs of a fight in the surrounding area, and his shoes aren’t muddy, indicating that he didn’t walk here. And if my calculations are right about the amount of time he’s been lying here, then that wouldn’t fit with my provisional estimation of time of death, which I’d put at somewhere between eight and eleven o’clock last night. That’ll need confirming of course.’