Her Dark Heart: A totally gripping crime thriller (Detective Gina Harte Book 5)

by Carla Kovach

  ‘Howard?’

  ‘Yes, Mary.’

  What she was going to say next would break Mary’s heart and she knew it. She couldn’t keep what she knew to herself any longer. ‘We need to know where he is.’

  ‘But he hasn’t done anything. Not Howard, surely.’

  ‘Mary, where is he?’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘We need to speak to Mr Hudson first, I’m so sorry. Where is he, Mary?’

  ‘He left early this morning, saying he had work to do. He snuck out the back when the journalists were taking a break and I haven’t seen him since. I’ve been calling him and he hasn’t answered. What’s happened? Has he hurt Susan?’

  Gina cleared her throat and nodded to Jacob. He would send uniform a message, telling them that Howard wasn’t in the building and to put an alert out for him. ‘Do you know a Ronald Halshaw?’

  ‘What’s this got to do with him?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Of course. He’s Howard’s cousin. Howard’s been fixing his laptop.’

  They were getting somewhere. ‘Tell me a little about their relationship.’

  ‘Has this got anything to do with Susan and Phoebe?’

  Gina unbuttoned her coat. ‘That’s what we’re trying to establish. It would really help if you told us everything you know about Ronald Halshaw.’

  ‘He moved away for years. His wife left him about twenty years ago, taking his daughter. He lost everything. He hasn’t seen his child since, she refused contact. Anyway, when he moved, they lost touch. A few months ago, Ron called to say he was moving back into the area and they’ve spent a lot of time together since. Has something happened to Ron?’

  ‘Did Ron have anything to do with Susan?’

  ‘No. Howard and I have only been together several years. I’d never heard of Ron until earlier this year and I only saw him when he came around to see Howard. Howard went to his mostly and I don’t think Susan has ever met him.’ Mary pulled at a strand of wool that hung from the cuff of her jumper.

  ‘Do you have his address?’

  She shook her head as she grabbed a tissue and wiped her nose. ‘I know he was looking at a place on Beech Street but I don’t know the number. He hasn’t properly moved in yet.’

  Jacob scribbled the street name down. Beech Street, that wasn’t far from Damson Close and Gina knew they were looking for a connection to Beech Street from the information on Susan’s notes. Had Ronald Halshaw been hanging around Susan’s car on the night of her disappearance? He could have easily taken her. Her mind flashed back to the moment she passed him in the hallway and when she heard Howard and him talking on the phone. He had very little hair. Had his address been the last one Susan went to that day, thinking she was going to see a new client? Maybe that’s why she parked in Damson Close, it was between the two addresses.

  ‘Did he ever mention the Cleevesford Youth Club?’

  She nodded. ‘He used to be a volunteer there, mostly doing the office work. Accounts and admin, that sort of thing, organising trips. Everyone loved him and Howard idolised him. Said he was a local hero. Always raising money, helping disadvantaged kids, arranging days out to the beach. What has this all got to do with Susan and Howard?’

  ‘I’m sorry to say we are investigating a case of historic child abuse and we think it has something to do with Susan and Phoebe’s disappearance.’ She couldn’t hold back this detail any longer. Mary needed to know how important it was that they located Howard.

  Mary’s lips quivered. ‘No, no he wouldn’t…’ She collapsed into a chair at the dining table and began to sob. ‘No, no, no. How could I have missed that?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mary.’ Gina sat beside her as the woman sat deep in thought. Susan had run away. Susan had been secretive. Susan was troubled. She already knew this and now, the reasons for Susan’s behaviour were all clicking into place.

  ‘Howard wouldn’t do anything like that. Susan has known him for years. This has nothing to do with Howard.’ Mary ran out of the room and shut herself in the downstairs toilet.

  ‘You okay, Mum?’ Clare called from the top of the stairs.

  Someone tapped at the front door. Gina peered through the letterbox, hoping that it wasn’t the media and she saw Kapoor smiling. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘We have access, guv. To the old youth club. The contractor is meeting us there now, with the keys and hard hats.’

  ‘Ask one of the PCs to come inside until we can arrange for a family liaison officer to be here.’

  ‘On it, guv.’ Kapoor dropped the letterbox.

  Gina’s phone rang. It was Briggs.

  ‘Harte. The contractor has arrived and he says that there is a broken door and some of the fencing has been cut out around the back of the building. I need you there, now.’

  ‘Arrange for backup. We have to assume that Susan and Phoebe might be in there. If that bastard has hurt them…’ Her muscles tensed as Briggs agreed and ended the call.

  ‘We have to go, right now,’ Gina whispered to Jacob.

  Mary came out of the toilet, bleary-eyed and pale. There was another tap at the door. Gina let the police constable in then led Mary to the kitchen. There would be plenty of time to get a formal statement later and she knew a search warrant was in process for the Hudsons’ house. Mary stomped over to Howard’s office and began tipping his drawers out and smashing his furniture up. ‘I hate him. I trusted him with my children and my grandchildren.’ She flung a pile of paper into the air followed by another and as the stapler hit the mouse, his computer came on. She gripped the mouse and began searching through his open screens, one after another. Gina hurried over and watched over her shoulder until an email came up.

  Get here now or this will be all over Facebook. What’s up Cleevesford, here we come!

  A photo of Howard unbuttoning an unconscious sixteen-year-old Stephanie’s shirt almost made Gina heave. Mary crumpled into a heap amongst all the paper. Screaming and screwing it up. Gina kneeled down and the woman gripped her arms. ‘We’re going to get him, Mary. I need to go now, but I’ll be back.’ She loosened Mary’s grip and left a young officer with her. Clare ran over to her mother with her screaming child under her arm.

  Blood pumped through Gina’s body. Her stab vest was in the boot and she was going in. She wanted to be the one to arrest Ronald Halshaw and Howard Hudson, they were hers, all hers. She swallowed the lump in her throat as all her muscles tensed. She had to get to Susan and Phoebe and hope that she wasn’t too late. Too late – that didn’t bear thinking about. She shivered.

  Sixty-Seven

  Gina fidgeted until her stab vest shifted to a more comfortable position. With her ribs being crushed and adrenaline pumping away, she could barely hear the hum of people talking and gathering outside the old youth club gate. ‘We could well be walking into a hostage situation and not only that, this building is a deathtrap. I know it goes without saying, but safety first.’

  ‘You have to wear these,’ the contractor said as he passed them all hard hats. ‘As you can see, the roof has started to cave in, there’s glass and debris everywhere. Don’t even try to go upstairs, half of the staircase is down and tread gently.’

  ‘How long has it been like this?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘As long as I can remember and I’ve been around here for ten years. I don’t know if you read the local papers. There is some ongoing dispute over the land. The building has always been used as a community centre, privately owned but generously given use of to the local authority. It’s been left to rot by whoever inherited it after the owner’s death. At the moment the building is sitting under a company name and that company pay us to keep it safe, hence the locks and boards. Nothing is happening with it any time soon. That much I can tell you.’

  Gina wondered if anyone would still want it when its dark past came out. ‘When did the boards and fences go up?’

  He rubbed his chin. ‘About a year ago, at least. I just drive by once a m
onth to check the perimeters.’

  ‘You reported that there had been some activity here.’

  He beckoned Gina over. She followed him through an entanglement of bushes. ‘See there. Someone has cut the wire fence. You can see how trodden the ground is. If you look carefully, you can see that one of the boards has been removed and what was once the old fire door looks like it’s on some sort of catch. There aren’t many houses close by either, which is why people don’t notice if anything goes on.’

  The old building, red brick with steps leading up to a large door, looked like it would have been something wonderful back then. ‘We’ll go in through the front. It’s too dangerous to go in this way.’ She glanced up. A sheet of roof felt dangled precariously above and it looked like an old chimney had settled on it. One bang of a door could bring the whole lot down.

  As they headed back, Wyre, O’Connor and several officers were poised to enter.

  ‘We’re going in.’

  The contractor led them through the yard. Tree stumps had broken through what was once a concrete drive. Branches snaked out of the roof, reaching for the rainclouds above.

  Wyre half-tripped on an upturned slab as they silently followed the contractor to the main door. He inserted the key and turned it. Gina nodded. ‘You can wait back there.’ She pointed to the entrance. He looked disappointed as he headed away. ‘Wyre, follow me and don’t make a sound.’

  What was once an old reception room was nothing more than a moss-covered broken desk. Graffiti covered the walls. Old wrappers and cans filled the corners. She hurried across the room, crunching glass underfoot.

  As she burst through a door, she came to another room. Smashed up pieces of pool table were scattered around. The cooing of pigeons echoed through the mouldy room that had once been used as a hangout area. ‘I can’t hear anything. That must be the door to the offices.’

  Wyre nodded and crept closer. ‘There’s a lock on it.’

  Gina pushed the door. It wasn’t locked. That was door one of the corridor. Stephanie’s story ran through her mind. Three doors. Susan’s poem invaded her thoughts. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. Haunted by a missing woman with a secret past, one in which she ran from back then and now, it finally came back for her.

  As I let it out, I let the darkness in.

  It took me to a secret place, one in which I must never speak of.

  ‘Be silent, be silent,’ my mind tells me so. ‘You opened the door. It’s your fault and no one must ever know.’

  The poem sent a shiver down her spine.

  She hurried over the fallen roof debris straight to the second door. As she bumped into the wall on approach of door two, a waft of dust hit the air and a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling, just missing Gina’s forehead. Coughing, she flapped her hand in front of her nose. She flinched as a rat scurried alongside the skirting board, escaping through a hole in the wall.

  Wyre gasped. ‘Bloody hell. We’ll have less of those.’

  Through the door they went. That’s when she saw the room at the end, marked Office. All those years ago, three teenagers went into that room, trusting their youth worker. Adorned with gifts of food and alcohol, everything their teen selves desired. Wanting to be grown-ups, but still they were children in so many ways. She wanted to cry for them. As the smell hit her, she wretched slightly. ‘There’s a body.’ She shivered as Susan’s poem chanted in her head.

  Hammering, banging. ‘Open door three and let me out,’ it yells.

  ‘I’m opening the door.’ Not knowing what she was letting out, Gina gripped the door handle and gasped. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and saw blood, lots of blood.

  Sixty-Eight

  Gina flashed her torch into the room and saw the bloodied male lying face down on the floor. She reached over and checked his pulse. He was long gone. Blood glistened from the stab wound to his neck and the knife had been dragged towards the man’s shoulder, slicing through his flesh. ‘Susan. Susan Wheeler. It’s DI Harte. Call out if you can hear me. Phoebe, you’re safe. Where are you? Phoebe.’ A trail of sweat slipped over Gina’s cheek as she tensed up.

  Wyre flashed another torch on the scene. A damp odour came from the couch and a knitted blanket that sat against the back wall. A length of rope lay on the floor, resting on many years’ worth of wood, dust and plasterboard. Gina stepped over the broken wooden chair. ‘Shush,’ Gina called out as she listened to a single knock coming from the corner of the room.

  ‘Shall I check the cabinet, guv?’

  Gina wouldn’t risk Wyre’s safety but she had little care for her own. ‘No, I’ll do it. Stand back.’ As she stepped on the uneven floorboards towards the tiny old office wardrobe, it rattled again. O’Connor and Jacob had caught up and were waiting with a team of officers outside the door. She checked her stab vest – looking at the body on the floor she knew that she had to be ready for an attack. As she grabbed the wardrobe handle, she jumped back, poised to stop anyone from running and a carpet of rats escaped, darting across the floor, scurrying away through any gap they could find.

  A piercing scream came from the corridor. O’Connor was doing a dance before he ran into the office. ‘Get them away from me.’

  Gina slammed her fist into the door. ‘Jacob, get Bernard and the team in here… Shush!’ Again, she could hear something. ‘There’s something else on the other side.’ She tried to force the other door open but it had jammed. She kneeled in the debris, a shard of wood piercing her trouser leg as she shone the torch at the back. She braced herself for another stream of rats as she followed the light. ‘I’ve found Susan. Susan, Susan. Answer me. She’s not answering. I need a paramedic immediately.’ She reached in and couldn’t feel a pulse. As she wrenched at the jammed door, her face reddened until it finally gave way. After a stumble, Gina crawled along the ground and reached in. ‘Susan, answer me!’

  The woman had been bundled into the corner, ligature marks around her neck, her wrists and feet tied and gaffer tape put across her mouth. Gina almost heaved when she saw the gnaw marks to her ankles where the rats had been chewing on her flesh. ‘Susan.’ She gently pulled the tape, crawled into the wardrobe and hugged the freezing cold body. She couldn’t be dead. Mary flashed through her mind. She would have to tell Mary that Susan was dead. ‘Look for Phoebe, don’t just stand there,’ she shouted to O’Connor. She felt for a pulse again and exhaled. There was something, not much but it was there. ‘Where are the medics? I’ve got a pulse.’

  ‘They’re here, guv. Stand aside.’

  ‘We’re here, Susan. You’re safe now.’ If Susan could hear, she wanted her to feel safe. She only wished she could say to the woman that they’d found her daughter.

  ‘O’Connor, call Briggs, tell him we’ve found a body. Wyre, I want everything we have on Ronald Halshaw – outside in five minutes. Everyone else, get out and do it safely. I don’t want any accidents. This is now a murder scene and I don’t want any evidence further ruined.’ She stooped down and took a closer look at the man’s body as she held her arm across her mouth. ‘We’ve found Howard Hudson.’

  The tortured expression that filled the side of his face told her that Howard had died a painful death. She imagined herself kicking his head to a pulp after seeing the photo at Mary’s. Stephanie had lived with what they did to her and Ronald had even blackmailed her with their sick photos.

  She pulled a pair of gloves on and headed to the old couch, wincing as she inhaled. Down the side was a torn scarf. She recognised the material, it was the same pink material that the dogs had found by Dale’s body – that of Susan’s scarf. Several empty bottles of water were scattered across the floor along with a selection of empty fast food wrappers. A filthy jumper that looked to be about Dale’s size. A child’s glove lay under the jumper. ‘He has Phoebe. Ronald Halshaw has her. Dammit. Anything else in the building?’

  Jacob stood beside her and clenched his jaw, his face ashen. None of them were going to sleep well for a while aft
er this case. ‘We found more, guv. There’s a knife pinning a photo of Stephanie to one of the walls, photos of them as kids.’ He shook his head. She knew what kind of photos he’d found from the sick look washing across his face.

  PC Kapoor peered around the corner. ‘Forensics van’s here, guv, and Smith is at the station looking at Ronald Halshaw’s online accounts. Halshaw has a lock-up.’

  ‘We have to go!’ As they hurried out of the room, Gina inhaled, filling her lungs with clean air. ‘Why didn’t he just kill Susan straight away like he did with Dale Blair?’ she mumbled to Jacob as she stepped over a rat.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He kept her alive. He killed Dale soon after he was taken. Why keep Susan alive that long?’ Gina’s mind whirred and led her back to Phoebe. She couldn’t let this animal do to Phoebe what he’d done to Susan or worse, Dale. Panic rose in her chest as the enormity of their next task hit her. She gasped as her torch flickered and went out, leaving her with the stench of Howard’s body coating her nostrils. She leaned against the crumbling wall as she fought the nausea back.

  PC Kapoor came after them, lighting up the corridor. ‘You alright, guv.’

  ‘Yes. Let’s get to the lock-up. We need to find Halshaw, now. Show me what Smith sent you.’

  ‘Halshaw’s Facebook profile is just full of photos of his S-Type Jag, guv. We also have a home address from Howard’s office. A team is heading over to Beech Street now. This is one of his profile pictures on Facebook, do you recognise the place?’ Gina squinted at Kapoor’s phone.

  ‘I do. We have to go.’

  Sixty-Nine