The Sleeping Season

by Kelly Creighton

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Also by Kelly Creighton

  THE SLEEPING SEASON

  DI Harriet Sloane Book 1

  Kelly Creighton

  First published in 2020

  by Friday Press

  Belfast

  Copyright © 2020 Kelly Creighton

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  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.

  All rights reserved.

  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 permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN: 9781708710927

  www.fridaypressbooks.com

  @friday_press

  For Jude and Jonah

  Prologue

  Bad dreams eat me up. This one came first:

  I am fetching firewood with my father. I can smell the woodsmoked scent on my jumper, taste the wax from his Barbour coat. My three eldest siblings are teenagers again. Like spiders they drop from the dark well of that winter and crawl back into my memory. Tall, lanky and dressed in black, both boys have their backs to me as they sow stones into Lough Erne, while Coral shudders on a frost-stiffened margin of grass nearby.

  Then we turn away and walk toward our holiday chalet until Coral screams. It is a needle piercing the air.

  ‘Someone’s in there,’ she shouts. ‘I can see them! Look!’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ says Father, letting the logs drop onto the grass.

  ‘I’m going in,’ says Brooks. He thunders into the lake.

  ‘Get out of there! Get out now,’ shouts Father.

  Brooks is moving but only just. His feet are heavy as stone slabs, the water up to his knees, then further, to his shoulders; next, his head is gone. Brooks turns into a fly in a cup of tea. He is unable to hear how our father damns him up and down. He comes up for air, then he is trawling a man out from the iced mere, pointlessly trying to turn the body face up.

  Addam takes a whiplash glance at Father, then wades in. But Brooks, instead of relinquishing a portion of this tragic find, shrugs him off, shouts, ‘I’ve got him, dicksplash, get out of the road!’

  Father is angry at them both. I think he is angry at me too. He orders me to leave, then goes to meet Brooks who lowers the man to the ground with a thud. His blanched, giant water-swollen hands roll away from his lifeless person; his head turns away so I can’t see his face. Coral crouches beside him like she might go in for a pulse. It is now I notice his fingernails are missing.

  ‘Coral, come away,’ Father orders. He takes off his Barbour coat and throws it over the dead man’s head. ‘Get you all inside,’ he says, putting his hand squarely on Addam’s chest. ‘I’ll head next door and call local branch.’

  ‘What about an ambulance too, Daddy?’ I say.

  ‘Yes, a private ambulance too,’ he mutters, crouching beside me. He takes my hands inside one of his and rubs them tenderly like I’ve never seen him before or since. ‘Do you understand, Harry?’ he says. ‘It’s too late to help him now.’

  Without understanding I nod.

  ‘He’s dead, H,’ Coral says.

  ‘Get inside. Now!’ Father shouts as if afraid to leave his children with this decaying, waterlogged stranger.

  Charlotte is indoors. As is Mother, and Grandmother, who lives nearby and who we always gather like a stray sock, on our way through to the chalet. Before we had gone out, Charlotte, in her sultry possessiveness of Mother, had the old mortar and pestle out of the scullery and was grinding winterberries and leaves into a perfume as a gift for her; she is in the same position when we return. Grandmother is still dealing herself a game of solitaire in the kitchen; the string of Christmas lights Mother has threaded around the curtain rail throbs its rhythm of colours onto the plastic tablecloth as Grandmother snaps her cards face up.

  ‘What on God’s earth has happened to you?’ she asks Addam. Then she sees Brooks soaked entirely.

  The smell of him is foul. Charlotte wrinkles her nose, then pinches it.

  ‘We found a body,’ says Coral. ‘It was floating in the lake – a man – and he’s dead.’

  Charlotte jumps up and goes to Mother, burrowing her head into her armpit like a tick. Grandmother hands the boys fresh towels to dry off, but they are in no hurry to change. Brooks’s hair is plastered to his face and blacker than ever. With every jumpy movement his shoes squelch on the floor; the tiles pool with his brown water.

  ‘Could hardly get at him,’ Brooks says. He is shivering with shock and cold.

  ‘Weighed a tonne,’ says Addam.

  Charlotte grasps at Mother until Mother dislodges her, tells her to take a seat.

  ‘Right,’ she says. Calmly she goes to stoke the fire, glad to be busy with her hands. ‘Girls, out you all go.’

  ‘But it’s nice and warm in here,’ I say, edging towards the hearth.

  Flames are taking tiny jumps, like someone spitting into the air. I hear Father’s boots loosen the gravel outside.

  ‘Girls, out and let your brothers get changed,’ Mother says.

  ‘Could hardly get him,’ says Brooks. His eyes are intense, sparkling with worry.

  The door opens and Father appears, carrying the logs we collected. He sets them beside the fire and updates us – there is no one at home next door and he will have to walk further. We know the score. Get out of the way.

  Eventually the RUC officers come to the chalet where they fawn over my parents, delighted, it seems, to have Charles Sloane, the Chief Constable himself, order them about.

  ‘The body’s been in there ten to fourteen days,’ Father says to them in the kitchen. I watch from the living room. He knows how to talk to his inferiors and establish his authority. Then he asks a question which surprises me. Perhaps it is to demonstrate that he can be humble too. ‘Wouldn’t you say the same?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know,
Chief. He’s in good nick.’

  ‘The water’s cold enough though,’ Father says. He spots me looking at him and edges the kitchen door closed with his foot.

  Stridently I walk off, but I can’t resist returning to eavesdrop.

  ‘But the stones in Jamesy Lunney‘s pockets, Chief?’ an officer asks.

  ‘They just delay the find. Enough time and they resurface.’

  Another voice comes through the door, another male. He sounds happily out of puff.

  ‘We’ve found Jamesy’s belongings, for all there was of them – that oul’ tatty sleeping bag, a bag of jumpers, jeans, all piled up. About a hundred yards from the house in that direction.’

  ‘They come back up where they go in.’

  ‘That’s right, Sir.’

  *

  Since I was a girl I’ve had this dream. Sometimes I still brood over it, over how many bodies there are lying on the floor of the lough, waiting.

  But there are other bad dreams too. Dreams that come with knowledge and age. Dreams that come with the job. Dreams of people I have tried to save but couldn’t. Dreams of trying to save myself. Dreams of the things that are broken in people, things that you just can’t see for looking. Dreams of Jason Lucie. Our old bedroom. And a gun.

  That one eats me up the most.

  Chapter 1

  I wasn’t supposed to be on shift that Monday in October. I was supposed to be off, and free to wake on my sofa at some senseless hour as usual, then potter about my third-floor two-bedroom apartment in St. George’s Harbour overlooking the Lagan and the towering yellow profiles of Samson and Goliath beyond it.

  My living room was a rectangle partitioned off by the dining table where I completed my casework. The window had no blind, letting the sun stream in when it was ready to.

  I never knew my neighbours: the young English couple renting the top floor apartment above and the older local couple living below, nor the ones below them. But I knew their sounds. The people above liked to listen to The Strokes. Last Nite was a favourite; they always played it before going out. Their footsteps were noticeable but soft and beating. I knew that the woman had the manners to take her high heels off when she entered the apartment. I learned this when the woman from the floor below commented on my mine the morning after I staggered home from a night out. Did I know the clacking stilettos made on my wooden floor? After that I avoided her.

  Family never visited the apartment. Father would have called, only I put him off in case Greg was there. Charlotte didn’t call because the place was unreasonably small if she had her kids with her – five, like we’d grown up with. And Brooks would have dropped in any time, but he’d disappeared off the face of the earth. Greg was the only person who came by invitation.

  Jason Lucie, on the other hand, liked to surprise me. He was the most charming man I had ever known, with his pale skin, eyes the colour of sandy silt, red hair and a wide smile that put people at ease. When he stood on the bridge looking up at my window he would be wearing a hoodie, the hood pulled up, his smile imperfectly still, sending a message to me. He wore that hoodie because I bought it for him, and because sometimes I slept in it at our house in Osborne Gardens when I was cold in bed.

  Jason knew my routine, so when I jogged along the Lagan, he would be standing on East Bridge Street, doing nothing but staring. For over a year – once he found out where I’d gone – he was there almost every night. That’s why I liked to shake up my work shifts and my runs. I wasn’t giving anything up; I was just timing it differently.

  At other times the thought of going anywhere outside of work terrified me and I would sit at home and wait for Greg to call. My life became like that – a waiting game. Waiting for people to give up on me, you could say.

  Anyway, I was supposed to be off that day. I was eating breakfast when Detective Inspector Diane Linskey, my partner, phoned with the news.

  ‘I said we’d take it. Is that alright, Harry?’ Linskey paused hopefully.

  ‘Yep. Of course,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll get us both out from behind the desk.’

  ‘Oh yeah, we’ve been getting much too cosy behind our desks.’

  Linskey laughed.

  An hour later I pulled into Strandtown PSNI station, then went inside and put my handbag in my locker. Outside Linskey was waiting by our navy-blue Skoda hatchback.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ she said with cheery routineness. She put on her sunglasses and attempted to stare through the low, strong October sun.

  ‘Tell me more about this boy,’ I said as we drove down the Holywood Road.

  ‘A missing four-year-old – River, you call him. He’s gone missing from his home in Witham Street. His mother called it in.’

  ‘Anything strange or startling?’

  ‘The mother was hard for the operator to get much more from. An officer has been out, but I thought this was one for us.’

  ‘Great.’ I yawned.

  ‘You need an early night, Harry.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’ I yawned again. I hadn’t slept for a couple of weeks.

  ‘You can drive on the way back to the station,’ she said. ‘It’ll stop you falling asleep on me.’

  ‘Aren’t you funny!’ I said.

  We stopped at the lights at Holywood Arches from where there was a glimpse of CS Lewis Square, a small community garden with murals of long-haired hippy women dancing through fields, a welcome replacement for ones of men nursing rifles and resentment.

  Fronting the Newtownards Road, a fair old smattering of shutters were permanently down, only unlocked for potential buyers. Or there were fake shop fronts that were trying to dupe those not paying full attention. The road was a graveyard for businesses in their infancy; the only shops awake were those that had always been there. But this didn’t stop the constant pulse of traffic. It was a go-through, get-past place as much as anything, reminding us Belfast people that there’s life beyond our floating city.

  In between the Gold Buying Centre and the Charter for Northern Ireland office, turning right into Witham Street, we toured a lane of small red-brick terraces, ending with five relatively new three-bed homes that sat proudly facing the hunched shoulder of the old graffiti-scarred transport museum. Four of the newish-builds were semi-detached, but the address we were going to was a detached property with a tasteful dim pink door and a topiary plant either side of it and without the small audiences of weathered garden gnomes that adorned most of the houses in the street.

  ‘This is surprisingly cute,’ Linskey said.

  We got out of the car. A woman with short red hair came out hurriedly to greet us. She was still in her pyjamas.

  ‘Mrs Reede?’ Linskey asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re here now and we’ll help you find your boy.’ She shook the woman’s hand and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. This kind of case got Linskey going; the stakes were high – a child was involved. She loved cases where she could help a family.

  We followed Zara Reede into her home where she clawed the cream-coloured throw off the sofa and placed it around her shoulders like a shock-absorber. She raked her fingers through the tormented locks of her hair and told us what happened. After she woke that morning she went downstairs, made a cup of tea, had a smoke at the back door and got back into bed, thinking that her son River – the missing child in question – was being unusually quiet.

  ‘I called out to my partner Raymond,’ said Zara, ‘asked if he would check in on Riv. I thought Raymond was shaving in the en suite bathroom. But he didn’t reply when I called him, so I called Riv. But he didn’t reply either. Then I knew something was wrong. I got up, looked out, saw Raymond in the garden. When I went into River’s room he wasn’t there. So I went downstairs again … usually River puts the TV on soon as he gets up. I don’t like him to, but you know how wee boys are.’

  At this Linskey nodded, being the mother of two boys now aged eighteen and twenty. ‘Yes, I remember,’ she said.
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  We watched Zara pace. Linskey grew her eyes at me and gave a slight tip of her head at the banging coming from the back garden.

  ‘May I take a look around?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, Detective.’ Zara pressed her lips inside her mouth, a dimple forming in each tear-stippled cheek. ‘But you’ll not find River here. We’ve looked everywhere. You know, in cupboards and places like that.’

  Up I stood anyway, glancing at the wall to the right of the fireplace which was a shrine to the boy: six photos of River in various toothless stages. I took a moment to take them in, to learn his face.

  ‘He’s changed loads since those were taken,’ said Zara.

  On the Mexican pine mantel was a small gold carriage clock and an overloaded pot of amaryllis trumpets. The photo Zara had set out for us rested against the plant pot. I lifted it up.

  ‘We’ll get this image of River circulated as soon as possible, Mrs Reede,’ I told her.

  I knew there was a lesson to be learned from the pied cheeks of mothers of missing children. It was on their top lips, shiny with the glassy liquid that streams from their nostrils and spreads all over their faces like a rash of fire.

  ‘And he was wearing his pyjamas?’ Linskey asked. ‘Isn’t that what you said on the phone?’

  At this point Raymond came in: a stout man with a head of thick, black, curly hair. He wore a pair of grey cords and a bland pullover, and walked as though he was soaking wet. He wiped his hands on a rag, reached out and shook mine.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said.

  ‘Detective Inspector Harriet Sloane,’ I said, then gestured in Linskey’s direction. ‘This is Detective Inspector Diane Linskey. We’re going to get this photo and the description of River straight into circulation. It’s best to act fast, Mr Reede.’

  ‘Marsh. My surname’s Marsh,’ he said. ‘We’re not married.’

  Zara turned to look at him, cloaked in the plush throw. It fell in pleats around her like a baptismal cloak. She gave us a feeble smile, showing her teeth, straight and white if not a bit big for her small face. She was attractive. Would be any normal day. Beautiful and repulsive.

  ‘I’ll have that look around now,’ I said.

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ said Raymond.