Copyright © 2021 Tony Forder
The right of Tony Forder to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2017 by Bloodhound Books
This version published in 2021 by Spare Nib Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
tonyjforder.com
[email protected]
Original version Published by Bloodhound Books in 2017. Publication withdrawn in 2020.
Also by Tony J Forder
The DI Bliss Series
Bad to the Bone
The Scent of Guilt
If Fear Wins
The Reach of Shadows
The Death of Justice
Endless Silent Scream
Slow Slicing
Bliss Uncovered (prequel novella)
Standalone
Fifteen Coffins
Degrees of Darkness
Previously Published Mike Lynch Series
Cold Winter Sun
To my father, who never got to read the
book I started writing for him.
Contents
FORWARD
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Landmarks
Cover
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Foreword
Prologue
FORWARD
When the rights to a previously published book are returned, you have to make a few decisions. Firstly, do you want to publish it yourself? Secondly, if so, do you want to make changes to it?
The answer to the first came easily: absolutely. As for the second question, that was a little more difficult to answer. I’ve learned a lot since I first wrote this book, and hopefully I’m a better writer than I was then. But I had to consider the danger that I might lose its essence and edit out the better parts – yes, that really is a thing! So, having initially believed I would set about this book with the red pen, I decided to make only minor improvements, leaving the vast majority exactly as originally published.
I loved writing this book. In particular I enjoyed the freedom to ‘purple-up’ my prose at times, and to simply write to entertain. Ultimately, I felt the only way I could remain true to that was by keeping it largely as I originally wrote it, other than the obligatory edit and proofread.
Tony
March 2021
PROLOGUE
The bearded man bound Luna Novak’s hands and feet with rough cord, before tearing off a six-inch section of adhesive tape from a roll and placing it over her mouth. The twenty-four-year-old complied meekly and kept still for two reasons while he did this: first, the vicious slap he had planted on her cheek moments before, which had left her face throbbing; the second being the gun he had taken care to show her at the front door when he first revealed himself not to be the plumber she had been expecting. When he was done with her, Luna looked on tearfully as he moved across the room towards Jack, who was sitting on the floor in front of the massive TV screen.
Jack was a typical seven-year-old, and when he was riveted to one of his favourite shows he was oblivious to anything and everything happening around him. Certainly he had taken little notice of the two men wearing plain blue overalls who had entered his home a few minutes earlier. The bearded man now stood over Jack, whilst the other propped himself up in the doorway and filmed everything on his phone. The bearded man glanced back at Luna, and though she could not talk, her red and swollen eyes pleaded with him for mercy as she started to wriggle and fight against her bonds. He smiled for a moment, shook his head and put a finger to his lips. Then he raised the pistol, aimed it at the back of Jack’s head, and squeezed the trigger.
*
Georgina Ferris was immediately drawn to the man who announced himself at her desk as Vincent Riley. His appointment was in her Outlook calendar, but other than the fact that he was looking to rent a safe deposit box, she knew precious little else about the man. Regarding him closely now, she saw that he was tall and slim, immaculately dressed in a three-piece navy-blue suit, beneath which he appeared trim and toned. He looked like the sort of man for whom the term ‘ruggedly handsome’ may have been coined.
Slightly flustered by her reaction to the potential client, the vault manager nonetheless succeeded in remaining a consummate professional. Her smile was formal, eye-contact nothing more than perfunctory.
‘Welcome, Mr Riley,’ Georgina said, shaking the man’s hand. His grip – as expected – was both warm and firm. ‘Have you come far today?’
‘Not at all,’ he replied. His own smile was equally qualified.
‘I understand you’re wanting to take a look at our safe deposit vault today, with a view to renting out a unit.’
‘That’s correct. I’m thinking of an extra-large, but I want to see for myself how secure it will be.’
Georgina nodded. ‘Absolutely. You understand that we can go only so far, that I can’t let you into the main vault itself until you have actually been vetted and rented a box. However, from the outer ring you can see into the area that contains our most secure safes.’
‘That will be fine,’ he said.
‘Good. In that case, I’ll show you down immediately.’
It was just a single flight down, but Georgina chose to take the lift. Part of her wondered whether she was excited to be in close proximity to the man. In the small enclosure his scent was light and citrus-based. Her mind unspooled a scenario where she forced him against the door and licked his face. As the door slid open, Georgina felt a flush creep into her cheeks.
The man walked by her side as they moved along a narrow passageway. He said nothing as she let him through the first of two heavy doors, tapping a password into a wall-mounted entry system each time. The second allowed them access into a circular chamber, three sides of which contained steel-rod doors. Georgina walked across to the one on her left, and gestured with her hand.
‘Keycodes
got me here, but from this point biometric identification is required in order to access the vaults themselves. As you can see, beyond this barrier there is a vault door. That door is 300 centimetres thick, with five securing deadbolts each the size of your fist. Beyond that are the boxes themselves. Honestly, you won’t get anything more secure in the whole of London, Mr Riley.’
He nodded, seeming to appraise his surroundings. ‘What about box keys?’ he asked.
‘Only two are ever made for each box. One of them is a master, the other unique, so both are required in order to open the safes. You would retain one, and we retain the other.’
‘How secure is your master key?’ he asked.
She smiled. ‘It is also stored in its own safe overnight. When not secured in there, it is on my person at all times.’
‘Good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.’ He dipped a hand inside his jacket and withdrew a slim mobile phone from the pocket. ‘Mrs Ferris, please take a look at this, would you.’
He turned the screen towards her and pressed a large arrow in the centre. As she focussed on it a video began to play. Georgina had heard of blood turning to ice in the veins but had never considered that possible. Right now, it did not seem so far-fetched.
On the man’s phone screen was her seven-year-old son, who sat on the floor watching TV in their own living room. The camera swept across the room to reveal her child minder, whose mouth was covered in what looked like grey duct tape, hands fastened together by thick cord. Georgina’s eyes shifted from the phone to Vincent Riley, though already she was reasonably certain that would prove not to be his real name.
‘Keep watching the phone,’ he said.
This time the screen revealed a figure, its back to the phone, looming over Georgina’s son. She sensed the figure was a man, but could not see his face. Instead, her eyes were locked upon the gun he held in his right hand. Her mouth fell open, her eyes widened and she started to shake. As Georgina started to speak, the figure squeezed the pistol’s trigger.
Water squirted from the barrel and sprayed Georgina’s son. He jumped up with a howl of anguish, which paled into comparison with Georgina’s own.
‘Next time it won’t be water,’ the man standing by her side told her. ‘Do as you’re told and he won’t be hurt.’
Georgina had always known that she would do anything asked of her in order to protect her little boy. She had simply never believed she would ever be put to the test.
ONE
I was a man on a mission; what should have been a simple undertaking to reach home after a long, arduous, and ultimately fruitless journey from one side of the country to the other and back again. It had been one of those days, though. One that starts out bad and slides on downhill from there. At the moment I saw no way to arrest its decline.
A five-hour drive on a business trip had led to no reward. A stale turkey and ham sandwich my only nourishment all day long. Some mindless prick had keyed my Saab’s rear offside door while it was in the car park. Then I discovered a flat tyre, which had me changing it in full view of the glassy offices of the company who had just rejected me. I had the damn wheel off before I discovered that my spare was also flat. It took the RAC almost ninety minutes to reach me, and a further twenty passed before I managed to get back on the road. And then fifteen minutes ago the tailback resulting from an accident on a northbound stretch of the M5 motorway had forced me to divert to unfamiliar roads. If the rules governing the apportioning of luck were holding true, right now some fortunate arsehole was writhing on a bed covered with fifty-pound notes from his lottery win and getting his balls polished by the tongue of a supermodel.
I shook my head at the thought of my misfortune, wearied by it all. Beyond the twin cones of the Saab’s headlights, the road ahead was impenetrably black. Lightning flared over the looming ridges of surrounding hillsides, cutting through the dark wall of night. Outside the car, the air was heavy, thick with moisture, swollen clouds a precursor to a fierce summer storm that had been brewing for several days. Inside the Saab, climate control blew a cool breath over my face.
I stretched out a yawn and blinked rapidly. Told myself to stay the hell awake. I had tried the radio, moved on to the CD player. Sound alone wasn’t cutting it. I had powered down my window, but the road noise irritated the shit out of me. I’d even tried singing to myself, but my tuneless voice grated.
Nothing worked.
I was starting to feel numb with exhaustion. Although all I really wanted to do right now was keep on going until I reached home, pulling off the road and taking a break seemed like a better idea than falling asleep at the wheel.
A couple of minutes later, a sign showing a white P on a blue background told me the next lay-by was half a mile in the distance. Almost immediately, drops of rain squelched against the Saab’s windscreen. Thin at first, getting thicker and heavier within seconds. From spit to splat in the blink of an eye.
‘Damn it!’ I said, slamming my palm against the black leather steering wheel.
Slowing to a crawl, I eased the car off the road and into the lay-by, tyres crunching and jolting over a gravelled, uneven surface. A small pothole tested the Saab’s suspension. I parked up by an overflowing green waste bin and killed the engine and lights, letting go a long sigh of relief and frustration. I rolled my shoulders and neck, which were stiff with tension. Flexing my fingers I reflected that although I enjoy driving, long journeys could be a real chore.
Peering out through the windscreen, I saw only the night lurking close by, with not even the distant sodium glow of a town to offer any comfort. So this is where the misshapen freaks come sneaking down from the hillside, I thought, and either hack me to pieces or feast on my bones. Or both, if they are in a bad mood. By pulling over I had perhaps saved myself from pulping my flesh and bones in a car wreck, but the soul-sucking Reaper would probably only consider that a postponement of the inevitable.
‘Jesus, Mike’ I muttered to myself. ‘You’re such a cheery soul. Are you available for children’s parties, too?’
I dismissed the negative imagery from that train of thought. Without the Saab’s muscular growl in the background, I listened to the rain hammer down on the roof and lash in slanting sheets against the windscreen. Ordinarily it was a sound I enjoyed. Not this time, however. This time it was yet another in a long stream of annoyances.
I am an angry man. Or at least, had become so of late. I knew why. Drinking was a hard way to live a life, but not drinking was so much harder still. Alcohol wasn’t the illness, rather the cure for one.
Or so I had thought at the time.
And a drink was what I wanted more than anything else in the world right now. There was nothing available in the car, and I hoped I would not have touched it even if there were. To help me remain that way I whispered some of the positive thoughts I had been taught: You are not perfect. You must take one day at a time. You need to do the next right thing.
It helped. Most of the time.
Lightning speared down from a crack in the sky once more. There seemed little chance of my getting any sleep, but I figured maybe just resting up for an hour or so would be enough respite to enable me to continue in a more positive frame of mind. I checked the dash clock. It was 1.23 am and I still had a three-hour drive or more ahead of me.
No way I was spending the whole night here in the middle of nowhere.
No way I would make it home without rest, either.
Lose–lose.
Typical.
I snapped off my seatbelt, powered back the grey leather seat and settled down into its familiar hollows. I stretched my legs out as far as the footwell would allow. If I had to stop here for a while, I figured I might as well be comfortable. Given all I had endured, I reckon I’d earned it.
My mobile phone was in its docking unit, attached to the dashboard with a rubber suction cup. I reached across to press a speed-dial number. The familiar United States single ringtone sounded three times before the call was co
nnected.
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Hi, kiddo. What you up to?’
‘Not much. Hanging, watching some TV before dinner. You?’
I chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Wendy, if I told you it had been a shit day, in a week of shit days, in a month of shit weeks, would you believe me?’
‘Yes, Dad. Because that’s what you always say.’
She laughed, which made me smile despite my mood.
The long haul west had taken me to an initial briefing. This was followed by an anxious four hours waiting for a call-back. And finally a thirty-minute evening meeting, during which I was made to feel extremely small and even more insignificant by a female personnel director whose demeanour was frigid right from the initial icy handshake. She casually let it be known that one of her peers had coerced her into the meeting, despite her busy schedule and the late hour. Also that she already had a preference for the contract, and nothing less than an outbreak of plague was going to sway her in a different direction.
I related this entire tale of woe to my daughter.
‘What a bitch!’ Wendy said.
‘I know. Right?’
‘Did you chin her, dad?’
‘I don’t hit women. Ask your mum. No, I simply sat there seething, remaining professional and dignified on the outside.’
‘Really? You?’
‘I did. You would have been proud of me, kiddo. Of course, what I actually wanted to do was reach over the glass table and rip out her tongue.’
Again the laughter. ‘So you wouldn’t hit her, but tearing out her tongue is acceptable behaviour?’
‘I said I wanted to. I didn’t say I would do it.’
What I had done instead was sit and nod and smile and attempt to talk myself up – something I am not big on. It wasn’t rocket science – it was a contract to design a whole assortment of packaging, documentation and advertising material connected with a new range of products. A big deal to me and my bank balance, but a drop in the ocean to a chemicals conglomerate.
Scream Blue Murder Page 1
