Also by Lauren A. Forry
Abigale Hall
For Dad, who taught me to love a good mystery
Copyright © 2020 by Lauren A. Forry
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
First Edition
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Forry, Lauren A., author.
Title: They did bad things: a thriller / Lauren A. Forry.
Description: First Edition. | New York, NY: Arcade CrimeWise, [2020] | “An Arcade CrimeWise Book.” |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020000508 | ISBN 9781950691449 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781950691630 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Horror fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6106.O777 T48 2020 | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000508
Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt
Cover photograph: © JannHuizenga/Getty Images (sofa); © Vladimirovic/Getty Images (texture)
Printed in the United States of America
EVIDENCE
Recovered/Seized from (Person or Location):
Wolfheather House, Isle of Doon
Remarks:
Diary located immediately upon entrance to house, on doormat. (Footprint on cover belongs to first officer on scene.)
Missing pages not yet recovered.
Pp. 1–3
To Whom It May Concern
You’re not afraid of doing bad things. You’re afraid of getting punished for doing them.
No, not me, you say.
Really?
Okay, think about it like this.
It’s your lunch hour. You’re thirsty, but you forgot a drink. The vending machine is broken, and the nearest shop is a fifteen-minute walk. You’ve already lost ten minutes because Sheila from accounts wouldn’t shut up about free-range chicken salad, so by the time you reach the shop, you only have forty minutes left. Even if you hurry, that will only give you twenty-five minutes to eat once you get back to the office. Wouldn’t it be easier to grab a bottle of Coke from the shelf and walk out of the shop rather than wait in line while some old biddy pays the cashier in 1p and 2p coins and the young mother after her remembers she has to grab one more box of nappies and the schoolgirl who’s next and should probably be in class right now is too busy reading Heat magazine to move up in the queue?
Wouldn’t it be ten times easier to take what you need and leave the shop? ’Course it would. But you don’t.
Why?
Because store security would chase after you, give you a warning. Maybe even phone the police, who might give you a pat-down just to make sure you weren’t nicking something worth more than 90p. Might even ban you from the shop or arrest you.
So you don’t do it. But you would if you could.
That’s only a bit of light shoplifting, you say. That’s not a serious crime. That’s not like murder. You’d never murder anyone.
(Everyone thinks they’d never commit murder.)
And I’d say, even if you wouldn’t get in trouble?
And you’d shake your head and talk about morals or throw in God for good measure.
And I’d say, isn’t fear of getting in trouble with God fear of getting in trouble? And maybe you’re an atheist so you care fuck-all about God, but still, you say, you wouldn’t do it.
Why?
Because, you say, you’d feel guilty. And that guilt would eat you up until you were so desperate for the pain to end, you’d turn yourself in because then it wouldn’t be a punishment. It would be relief.
The police will tell you it’s not your fault. They want you to believe that. You’re young and attractive and the whole world is in front of you, so they say it right to your face. It’s not your fault about Callum. Like they want to believe there’s good in people. They should know better.
But what if you could kill someone and not get in trouble and not feel any guilt? What if you could take a life as easy as taking that Coke from the shelf?
Think about it.
Really think about it.
I’ll wait.
You’ve got a specific person in mind, don’t you? A celebrity, a politician, a coworker. Maybe a friend. That one person that makes you think the world would be so much better off without them.
Yeah.
That one.
See, I knew what you were thinking because at their heart—and the police know it—people care about nothing except themselves. Given the choice, they’ll always take the easy way out. The way without guilt. Without pain.
Face it. People aren’t really very nice.
(Except Callum. He was a nice person. Maybe that’s where he went wrong. Maybe if he hadn’t been so nice, he’d still be breathing.)
I’ve always known that people were shit. However, it wasn’t until I got older that I realized there are three different kinds of shit. I learned it from a ghost story. Well, not a ghost story per se.
More like monsters.
The story goes that there was once a Scottish laird, an owner of a manor in the Highlands, who bred a pack of wolf-dogs to protect his property. These were large, terrible beasts with coarse gray fur that got matted with blood whenever they ate. But they could be playful and loving so long as they got their way. One night the laird had a guest and, to honor him, a fine cut of venison was prepared. To appease the pack, the laird gave each dog some of his meal. The guest, famished from the long journey, refused to relinquish a single morsel of his own meal despite the laird’s request.
At the end of the night, the guest retired to bed, only to be woken a short time later by someone breathing in his ear. He opened his eyes to admonish the maid for disturbing him, but it was not the maid’s eyes he saw. Before he could scream, the pack leapt and tore what was theirs straight from his belly.
And that’s people.
People are the tired guest or they’re part of the pack or they’re the laird. The laird I’ve always thought was the worst because he knew what the pack might do, but did he try to contain them? Distract their attention? Make provisions to protect his guest’s life? No. In the story I was told, he hid deep in the manor. More concerned with what might happen to him than what might happen to another.
So that’s what I know about people. People hide and people cheat and people lie and people only look out for themselves because people are shit and very few deserve better.
And Callum should’ve known this. This was the story he used to tell. But now, I guess, it’s mine.
This is, word for word, what I had sent The Inverness Courier. They never printed it. Apparently, they felt it was “inappropriate” for an obituary. But I put it here, at the beginning, because this is what I wanted you to read first. Before I tell you what they did to him. Before I tell you what I did to them. I
want you to understand that I know which of the three I became. What I want you to think about is very simple.
Which one are you?
Contents
Friday
1
2
Friday Night/Saturday Morning
3
Saturday
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
One Month Later
12
Acknowledgments
FRIDAY
1
Hollis
A sudden onslaught of rain splattered the windshield, drowning out Bon Jovi. Hollis Drummond swerved back and forth on the single-lane road, fumbling to find the wipers on the unfamiliar car. Refusing to stop living on a prayer, he turned up the volume and belted the chorus as he finally hit the windshield wiper lever. But unlike Tommy and Gina, he had no clue if he was halfway there because his phone was no more than a black brick. Hiring a car without GPS for a five-hour drive to the Isle of Skye, followed by a thirty-minute ferry ride, followed by another thirty-minute drive on a mostly uninhabited island, thinking he could rely on said phone, might not have been his most brilliant idea, he decided as he jiggled the cables.
The charger was attached to the phone port, the other end plugged into the car, but his mobile was not charging. Probably hadn’t been since he picked up the car in Inverness. Disconnecting and reconnecting the cable did nothing. He thought about ringing Linda for the directions, then remembered the dead phone was the reason he needed the directions in the first place. Timing his movements to the percussion, he tossed the useless thing onto the passenger seat. The road led only one way anyway.
The headlights illuminated the rocky landscape as he continued north, highlighting a patchwork of browns and dull greens, the vibrant purples and yellows of heather and gorse now out of season. Hollis liked the colors as they were. They reminded him of the brown and gray streets of Manchester, those he’d plodded up and down for so long and which, come Monday, he would see from a new angle. No uniform pressing for PC Drummond this weekend. A new pair of suits awaited him along with polished black shoes and a red tie with a subtle Manchester United watermark logo—a gift from Linda. It might’ve been thanks to his blind luck with the Marcus case, but he’d finally done it. The lads had taken the piss, of course. Hollis Drummond—mid-forties, the phrase “pushing fifty” just around the bend, his dozens of exams taking up a whole drawer in the filing cabinet—had finally made detective. He’d pretended it wasn’t that important, joked that some people needed to age like fine wine (or stinkin’ cheese, someone had blurted out). They tried to embarrass him by taunting him about his new partner, Khan, being ten years his junior and already a DS. If Hollis were lucky, they said, he’d be promoted to DS right in time to be pensioned off. Hollis shot back by saying Khan’s success had something to do with him being Asian.
“Dad, that’s so racist!” Linda would’ve said, so he hadn’t told her that bit, even though Khan was always saying the same thing himself. Unlike Khan, Hollis was never that good at laughing at himself. But he had gone along with the “old man” jokes to cover up how excited he was. And nervous.
Here he was on his last pre-CID holiday with a bottle of Dalmore and a few cheap paperbacks. A whole weekend to kick his feet up while the anticipation for Monday built like the final days before Christmas. And he still wasn’t sure he deserved it. The promotion. The trip. Any of it. Part of him thought he should be at home. Seeing Dr. Bevan one last time before his new Monday shift. But Linda had been so proud of him. And so pleased she had pulled off this surprise. He couldn’t disappoint her, even if instinct had been needling him to turn around since Inverness. He turned the stereo up another notch.
It was dark now, but Hollis still wondered if he’d see one of those orange cows Linda loved before the weekend was out.
“Coos,” she had said. “They call them Highland coos.”
Keeping his eyes peeled for a coo, Hollis almost missed the silver SUV blocking his path.
He jerked the car left and slammed on the brakes.
“Shit.”
As Bon Jovi yowled about steel horses and six strings, Hollis let out a slow breath, then switched the stereo off. The sudden silence was deafening as he lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror. The only reason he and the SUV hadn’t collided was because the SUV wasn’t moving. He could see it lifted up on a jack, but, from his vantage point, he couldn’t see anyone changing a tire. Using the keychain torch he kept in his pocket, he hopped out to check for signs of the driver, turning up his collar against the rain.
Mud and cow dung wafted in the air as needles of rain pricked his face. Wet gravel lodged into the soles of his boots. Though he was hundreds of miles from his own jurisdiction, he couldn’t switch off the part of his brain that urged him to help, holiday or not. After all, hadn’t he found Catherine Marcus on a day like this? A dark night, heavy mist, no other passersby.
There was no one inside this car, though, tied up or otherwise. The doors were unlocked and the driver had left the keys on the seat. There were no personal belongings and the registration indicated that, like his, this was a hired car. Nothing to indicate who had driven it here, or who had abandoned it. Hollis had been the only car on the ferry. Hadn’t passed anyone on his way in, saw no pedestrians in the distance. Out of habit, he checked for signs of blood or a struggle but found none. The tire iron was missing, but no body lay in the ditch. Not as far as he could see, which albeit wasn’t far.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and called out, listening to his voice carrying over the rain, then waited for a response. None came. The longer he stood there, the more the rain soaked through his jacket. He shouted one more time.
Back in his car, he shook his head like a wet dog and dug through his bag for the reservation confirmation.
Wolfheather House, The Bend, Isle of Doon, IV55 8GX.
The little square map showed the area ten kilometers around, but the last he’d looked at his phone before it died, he was still fifteen out. Hollis tossed the confirmation aside and restarted the car, scanning the horizon for any sign of the missing driver. The phone chirped—the red battery icon glowing before going black. Three minutes later, it held enough charge to power up, and he reentered the address into Google Maps.
“Now, stay that way, mate.” He gave the phone an encouraging pat, taking one last glance at the abandoned car as he drove off.
Though the music continued, he stopped singing along. Leaving a car like that in a place as isolated as this, it didn’t feel right, especially when the only problem seemed to be a flat. Each time he thought he glimpsed movement, he slowed, but there was never anything to be seen.
A few minutes later, the turnoff for Wolfheather House appeared on his right.
The main road disappeared in the rearview as he accelerated down a bumpy gravel path that, according to Google Maps, did not exist. The blue arrow that represented his car hovered in a tan abyss. After a few minutes, he had started to think this was all a practical joke orchestrated by Linda and the lads at the station when a sharp turn in the drive brought the well-lit house into stark view. Hollis slammed on the brakes.
“Fuck me.”
He grabbed the confirmation page, but the sole picture showed his guest room, not the entire cottage. Or rather, what he had assumed would be a cottage.
Last time he’d been on holiday, it’d been a basement room in the El Something Hotel in Benidorm that smelled of stale lager and flop sweat. Music from the club upstairs had reverberated through his mattress like an unwanted massage. He’d been expecting something on par, if maybe moderately better, but even if Wolfheather House had a cellar, it was probably nicer than his own flat. The three-story brick and stone manor was smaller than the mountains surrounding it, yet presided over the landscape like the lord who must’ve once owned it. The only time he’d seen a house this gorgeous was
on Midsomer Murders. But his admiration faded as he continued down the drive. The longer he stared at the once-beautiful Wolfheather House, the more faults he found. Chipped brickwork and broken sashes. Overgrown hedges and weeds nesting in the flowerbeds. Cracked urns flanking the doorway like decorations for a funeral parlor.
As he pulled in next to a banged-up Vauxhall sedan, the bad feeling he’d had on the main road returned. It was the same feeling he’d had when he made Frank Landry pop the boot of his Ford Fiesta, knowing he’d find Catherine Marcus tied up but breathing. It wasn’t instinct alone that had caught Landry, but Hollis’s eye for detail. “Poirot minus the OCD” an old partner had once described him. It helped Hollis remember traits and faces so that Landry’s attempt to conceal his features had looked poorer than a child dressing up for Halloween.
Hollis got out of his car and stared up at Wolfheather. With the sun-light near gone, darkness enveloped most of the house. Unlit windows gave the façade the look of a spider’s many black eyes. Maybe he did deserve this place after all.
Hollis made himself laugh. Adrenaline and exhaustion were getting him worked up. That was all.
He hoisted his kit bag over his shoulder and made his way inside.
The lobby of Wolfheather House warded off the chill outside. In the grand entranceway, a wide staircase laid a red-carpeted path to the next floor. Exposed beams crossed the elevated ceiling; to the left of the main entrance, a peat fire burned in a stone fireplace, filling reception with a welcoming scent that reminded him of his Irish great-gran’s cottage. Two overstuffed armchairs sat in front of the fireplace like a pair of old friends. A forgotten red carryall left a puddle on the floor.
A series of closed doors lined the wall to his right, and muffled voices permeated through one of them—a hushed argument like his parents would have before his father stormed off to his mate’s for the night.
“I don’t care why. What matters is that . . .” A sweating, red-faced young man, a cordless phone pressed to his ear, emerged from a different door on the right and closed it behind him. Tall and lanky with a shock of ginger hair, he looked like a scarecrow that had descended from the fields, a scarecrow wearing a designer suit.
They Did Bad Things Page 1
