The Catch

by T. M. Logan

  Praise for

  ‘Smart, intense and with a humdinger of a mid-point twist. I loved it’

  GILLIAN MCALLISTER, ON THE CATCH

  ‘Taut, tense and compelling. Thriller writing at its finest’

  SIMON LELIC, ON THE CATCH

  ‘T.M. Logan’s best yet. Unsettling and so, so entertaining.

  The perfect thriller’

  CAZ FREAR, ON THE CATCH

  ‘A tense and gripping thriller’

  B.A. PARIS

  ‘Assured, compelling, and hypnotically readable – with a twist at the end I guarantee you won’t see coming’

  LEE CHILD

  ‘A compelling, twisty page-turner, and that’s the truth’

  JAMES SWALLOW

  ‘Outstanding and very well-written . . . so gripping I genuinely found it hard to put down’

  K.L. SLATER

  ‘A terrific page-turner, didn’t see that twist! A thoroughly enjoyable thriller’

  MEL SHERRATT

  ‘Another blistering page-turner from psych-thriller god T.M. Logan’

  CHRIS WHITAKER

  ‘Even the cleverest second-guesser is unlikely to arrive at the truth until it’s much, much too late’

  THE TIMES

  Contents

  Part I: The Boyfriend

  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

  Part II: The Son-in-Law

  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

  Part III: The Husband

  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

  Part IV: The Catch

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  One Year Later

  Chapter 81

  Acknowledgements

  Letter from Author

  About the Author

  Also by T.M. Logan

  More thrilling reads from T.M Logan

  Copyright

  For John and Sue,

  Jenny and Bernard

  People only see what they are prepared to see.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  He shifts the knife to his left hand, feels for a pulse. Two fingers against the big artery at the side of the neck.

  Nothing.

  The skin is still warm to the touch, but the body is still. Completely still. The last flickers of life extinguished.

  The main thing now is to be calm. Because they won’t understand. Things just got out of hand. He hasn’t chosen this – but his hand was forced. Besides, in a way it was his job. The most important and rewarding job he’s ever had. And it was for the best: he only ever wanted the best, for everyone. He had seen the threat, seen the danger, and neutralised it. It was never going to work out, anyway. Not long-term.

  She would get over it, in time. Over him.

  He wipes the knife blade clean and slides it back into its sheath.

  The ground is a rough carpet of moorland grass, coarse and unyielding. He uses his bare hands to dig into the soil next to the body, revealing the dark Derbyshire earth beneath. He pushes his fingertips into it, feels the loamy dirt yield to the pressure, soft and damp after the recent rain. This is good.

  It will be easy to dig.

  PART I

  THE BOYFRIEND

  1

  FRIDAY

  I sat on the patio, the last rays of evening sunshine warming my face, listening to the warble of skylarks high up in the sycamores that bordered our garden. A Friday in mid-May, the twilight air rich with the tang of cut grass and the wispy smoke of neighbourhood barbecues. Warm enough to sit outside in the garden after dinner, sipping strong dark coffee as my daughter played badminton in the middle of our wide lawn with her new boyfriend.

  It was the first time we’d met him, even though Abbie had been seeing him for seven months. He was tall, athletic, with the looks of a catalogue model in a Sunday supplement. Pale pink linen shirt and chinos, his deck shoes dutifully removed in the front porch before he’d even been asked. And there had been no kisses on the cheek for my wife, Claire, or her mother, Joyce – not even an air kiss – just a hand extended to each of them, equality in action. Respectful, not too forward but not stand-offish either. His handshake had been firm and dry, his grip confident as he gave my hand a little extra squeeze.

  As I watched the two of them play, Ryan flailed at the shuttlecock, making a big show of overbalancing, tripping, landing flat on his back, still flapping his racket at the air. Laughing as he lay in one of the long evening shadows slanting across the lawn. Abbie’s own laugh was high and pure, rolling and echoing across the garden.

  There was a little ripple of laughter from the table beside me too. Claire and Joyce smiling over at the pair.

  ‘They make a good-looking couple,’ Claire said, stretching her tanned arms above her head. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have said no, if I was a bit younger,’ Joyce smiled, sitting forward in her wheelchair. ‘Just look at them together.’

  ‘Don’t you think, Ed?’ Claire put a hand on my forearm, her fingertips warm against my skin. ‘It’s lovely to see her happy again, isn’t it?’

  ‘She really seems to like him,’ I said, not meeting her gaze.

  It was true: Abbie was happier than I’d seen her in a while. It sounds like a cliché but this evening she was pretty much glowing. These last few months there had been an endless stream of Ryan-this and Ryan-that, as their long-distance weekend relationship developed.

  ‘He seems like a lovely boy,’ Joyce said.

  ‘He’s thirty-three,’ I said. ‘Not exactly a boy, is he? Almost ten years older than her.’

  ‘You know what Mum means,’ Claire said. ‘Look at them together, you can see they’ve got a real connection.’

  ‘We’ve only just met the guy.’

  My wife turned to me, a question in her voice.

  ‘Ed?’

  ‘What?
’

  ‘Abbie is really, really keen on him, so just give him a chance, all right? I don’t think he’s like the rest.’ She gave my arm a little squeeze. ‘Be nice.’

  ‘I’m always nice,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Of course you are, darling,’ Claire said, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. ‘Of course you are.’

  I returned my attention to the badminton match as Ryan slashed wildly at another shot and hit the shuttlecock into the net.

  Abbie was barefoot in the grass, dressed in white jeans I hadn’t seen before with a thin-strapped flowery top. Her fine dark hair flowed behind her as she darted from side to side. She had played since she was tiny, since she could only hit the shuttlecock one time in ten. Every summer I had set up the net on the lawn and we’d played endless games. It was a good memory; but it made me ache too.

  ‘Rematch?’ she said to Ryan, with a smile.

  ‘Will you go easy on me?’ he said, getting to his feet and brushing blades of grass from his pale trousers.

  ‘No chance!’ Playfully she fired another shuttlecock over the net at him.

  I studied him as they played. He was certainly well put together, a kind of a boy-band-next-door handsome. A light scattering of stubble across a strong jaw and a dimple in his chin. Straight white teeth that he showed often, a smile that seemed genuine and warm. Straight, strong eyebrows; eyes a deep, heavy brown, so dark they were almost black. He caught me watching, and our eyes met. But he didn’t smile, he didn’t look away, he just stared.

  And that was when it hit me.

  A jolt of nervous static right at the top of my spine, a shiver, as if someone had just walked over my grave. Something shifting in the air between us, vibrating like a plucked string.

  It was primal, visceral. An ancient instinct that would have warned a stone age hunter there was a wolf crouching in the shadows, ready to pounce. You can’t see the danger, or smell it, or hear it. But you sense it, as the fine hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

  And I knew it then, as I looked Ryan in the eyes. That was the moment I realised there was something not quite right about my daughter’s new boyfriend.

  There was something hidden in the dark shadows behind his eyes.

  Something off.

  Something very, very wrong indeed.

  2

  In the kitchen I picked up the coffee pot hissing on its hotplate, my heart beating so hard I could feel it in my chest. I took a breath, the pot shaking in my hand. Could I have got it wrong somehow? Until now Ryan had seemed nice enough. But I could still feel the effect of his stare, adrenaline jangling through my veins.

  Something about him wasn’t right, I was certain of it. Something he was hiding.

  Back outside on the patio I refilled Claire’s cup, trying to catch her eye, but she was distracted pulling a cardigan over her mother’s shoulders. Abbie re-joined us at the table, flopping down in one of the big wooden garden chairs. Tilly, our elderly cat, jumped ponderously up onto her lap and began kneading the legs of her jeans, leaving long grey hairs on the white fabric.

  ‘Your turn, Dad.’

  Her voice made me look up, and I forced a smile.

  ‘Always ready to give you some target practice, Abs.’ I put the coffee pot down. ‘Just remember I’m not the garden champion I used to be, so you need to give me a chance.’

  ‘Not me,’ she said, scratching behind Tilly’s ears as she blinked and purred. ‘I need a rest. You can play Ryan.’

  ‘Oh. Really?’

  Claire shot me a look.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, taking the proffered racket. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ryan said with a smile, walking casually over towards us. ‘I’m terrible at badminton.’

  I kicked off my flip-flops, the newly-cut grass tickling the soles of my feet as I followed Ryan over to the middle of the lawn, catching a hint of his aftershave, sharp citrus and something else; pine or eucalyptus. As he took up position on the other side of the net, I hit the shuttlecock in a high lazy arc to get the game going, my wife’s words returning: Be nice. But where Ryan had been flailing at the shuttlecock before, now he began lobbing and smashing with practiced ease, putting his shots beyond my reach. Instead of sprawling on the ground for Abbie’s amusement, he was poised and precise, springing from side to side and dictating the pace of play, ridges of muscle standing out on his forearm.

  He threw the shuttlecock high into the air and instead of following it, I watched his face. He glanced at me and then smashed down so hard that before I could register the movement I felt an impact on my chest with an oomph.

  ‘Ryan!’ I heard Abbie say with a laugh. I raised a hand to say I was fine, even as my chest stung with the impact. Ryan laughed and made a big show of putting his hands up in apology.

  ‘Sorry, Ed!’

  The score was 7-2 to Ryan when I sensed him easing off. He started missing shots that moments before he had been making easily.

  The match finished 11-9 to me.

  I paused to catch my breath. My polo shirt was already sticking to my back with perspiration, the cotton clinging to my skin.

  ‘Good game,’ Ryan said. He had barely broken a sweat. ‘Fancy another?’

  ‘Let’s have a breather first.’ I indicated the patio table where my family sat. ‘A quick drink. You sure you won’t have a coffee?’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Collier, but I don’t do caffeine.’

  I delved into the big ice bucket and splashed a little on the back of my neck, the water deliciously cold after the exertion of the match.

  ‘We’ve got beer and wine,’ Claire said, ‘or there’s other stuff in the kitchen if you’d like something else?’

  Ryan held up a hand, gave that smile again.

  ‘Not for me thanks, I’m driving to Manchester tomorrow and it’ll be an early start, then Monday morning I’m back here on shift doing school visits, so I probably shouldn’t.’

  ‘Ryan volunteers, as a special,’ Abbie told her grandmother. ‘A special constable, with the police.’

  ‘Oh, I say,’ Joyce said, gathering her cardigan further around her. ‘A policeman? We’d all better be on our best behaviour, hadn’t we?’

  ‘I’m not a fully-fledged officer,’ Ryan said. ‘We’re more there for support, community policing, foot patrols, public safety initiatives, that kind of thing. I’ve been doing school visits around knife crime the last couple of months. It’s just good to give something back, you know? To feel like you’re making a contribution.’

  I refilled my coffee cup and studied him out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t look like the police officer type. Too polished. Too perfect. Then again, my last real contact with the police had been a long time ago. A lifetime.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Claire said. ‘So how about a Diet Coke? Mineral water? We have squash in the kitchen, or juice?’

  ‘Mineral water is perfect, thanks Mrs Collier.’

  She fished out a small green glass bottle bobbing in the ice bucket and handed it to him.

  ‘Call me Claire, please.’

  ‘Thanks Claire.’

  Joyce rose slowly to her feet, levering herself up out of the wheelchair with her walking stick gripped in a shaking hand.

  ‘Time for a little lie down inside, I think.’

  Ryan was on his feet instantly, offering Joyce his arm, steadying her as she turned to go back into the house.

  ‘Thank you, Ryan,’ Joyce said, giving him an indulgent smile. ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Nana?’ Abbie said, rising too now. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine, love, this nice young man’s looking after me. I just need my twenty minutes.’

  The three of us watched as Ryan escorted her inside, her hand on his forearm. Beside me, Claire sighed and shook her head.

  ‘Seems like Mum’s getting weaker by the day,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you think those new drugs are even working?’

 
; I took her hand in mine, the skin of her palm soft and warm, and gave it a little squeeze.

  ‘Let’s talk to the oncologist again on Monday,’ I said. ‘See if they can have a look at the dosage.’

  She nodded as Ryan re-emerged from the house and sat back down at the table. Abbie gave her boyfriend a look, something passing between them in silence. Then she put Tilly carefully down on the patio and stood, handing her mother one of the badminton rackets.

  ‘Come on Mum, your turn to take me on.’

  ‘I’m not really dressed for it, darling,’ Claire said, indicating her blue patterned wrap dress. ‘And I’ve had wine.’

  ‘No excuses,’ Abbie smiled. ‘But I’ll give you a three-point head start if you like?’

  Claire reluctantly got to her feet and took the racket, following her daughter over to the net. I was reminded once again how alike they looked: same olive complexion, same fine dark hair, same slender frame – Abbie just a couple of inches taller than her mother. Ryan and I sat in silence for a moment, watching them play, the shuttlecock sailing in lazy arcs back and forth over the net in the soft evening light. The friendly banter between them soothed my discomfort. Claire and Abbie were my whole world: I loved them so much, sometimes it was like an ache deep in my chest.

  There was a feline squeal of alarm and I turned to see Tilly, her ears back, eyes narrowed, hissing up at Ryan. Was he just moving his foot away? He reached out a hand to stroke her but the cat flinched back and hissed again, her tail fluffing up in alarm. She was moving strangely, lifting up one of her back legs.

  ‘Sorry Ryan,’ I said. ‘She’s not often aggressive like that. She normally likes everyone.’

  I held a hand out to her but she hissed at me as well before scurrying away towards the garage.

  ‘She’s very distinctive looking,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Half-Siamese, gives her that pointy face.’

  Ryan rubbed at the back of his hand.

  ‘Did she scratch you?’ I said, watching him.

  ‘No, it’s fine.’

  I studied his face. The friction I’d felt between us was gone. Had I imagined it? He smiled, almost embarrassed at my gaze, and I forced a smile back.

  ‘Never seen her do that before,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe she just needs to get to know me.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.