by Carol Wyer
ALSO BY CAROL WYER
Detective Kate Young series:
An Eye for an Eye
Detective Natalie Ward series:
The Birthday
Last Lullaby
The Dare
The Sleepover
The Blossom Twins
The Secret Admirer
Somebody’s Daughter
Detective Robyn Carter series:
Little Girl Lost
Secrets of the Dead
The Missing Girls
The Silent Children
The Chosen Ones
Comedies:
Life Swap
Take a Chance on Me
What Happens in France
Suddenly Single
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2021 by Carol Wyer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542020930
ISBN-10: 154202093X
Cover design by Dominic Forbes
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Did you enjoy . . .
PROLOGUE
It’s mid-August and only one streetlight is working in this area of Stoke-on-Trent. Kate is crazy to even consider being in this part of town, let alone at one in the morning, but those were the terms agreed: time, venue and a thousand pounds in cash. She sinks further into her car seat, eyes darting from the wing mirror to the rear-view mirror and back to the empty doorway, searching for any sign of life, or trouble. If Farai thinks for one second that she’s disobeyed him or brought support, he’ll not show up.
‘Kate, you’re too tense,’ Chris’s voice cautions. ‘You need to loosen up and gain control of the situation. You know the drill in circumstances like this and you have what he wants – money. This guy will answer your questions if you act your usual, confident self. At the moment, you’re behaving like a rookie.’
She rubs her hands dry. Chris has a point. She isn’t usually this nervous, but so much is riding on this meeting. ‘I just want him to give me something. Anything.’
‘You can’t force this to happen. If he has any information, you’ll get it. Come on, Kate. Treat it like any other police operation.’
‘But it isn’t like the others! This is about you!’
She catches a movement and stops talking to herself. A tall man in a black parka appears; his skull-like face, framed by a furry hood, turns in her direction. She opens the car door and steps out onto the crumbling pavement, with the envelope containing the money firmly grasped in her hand.
The closer she gets to him, the calmer she becomes. He looks ill. His face is lined and his skin is stretched paper-thin. Individual whiskers protrude from his chin, tiny curls of grey wire.
‘DI Young.’ His voice is deep and rich, filled with an energy that doesn’t seem present in his body. ‘Show me your phone.’ She passes it to him. It’s switched off as requested. He checks it and returns it to her open hand. ‘Open your blouse.’
‘I’m not wearing a wire.’
‘Prove it.’
She jams her phone and envelope into her coat pocket, unbuttons her shirt and holds it wide open, exposing her exercise bra. ‘Satisfied?’
‘Now hand over the money.’
She does up her buttons and shakes her head. ‘No. Not until you’ve told me everything you know about what happened at the Maddox Club in January.’
He hesitates, takes in her fierce look and puts his hands in his pockets. ‘Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me. Are we clear on that?’
She nods.
‘That night, I sent one of my boys and two girls to a regular client – the club manager, Durand. He rang me in the early hours, told me not to expect my boy back . . . that he’d met with “an unfortunate accident”. He also told me the club was terminating my contract with immediate effect.’ Kate already knows about Farai’s arrangement to supply sex workers to the Maddox Club. This is not fresh news and her fingers tighten around the wedge of notes inside the envelope, unwilling to hand over such a large amount for such meagre information.
Farai stares into the distance, nostrils flared. Then a laugh, like the sound of distant thunder, rumbles, and he says, ‘I told Durand I’d require “com-pen-say-tion” for the sudden termination and for the loss of my boy – fifty grand. He agreed to my request on the understanding it was a one-off payment. The guest who’d booked my boy would pay up and Durand would arrange delivery of the funds.’ A rhythmic pulsing has begun in Kate’s ears brought about by a sudden increase in her heartbeat. This was something they hadn’t uncovered during the official investigation.
Farai continues, ‘A week later, we met at a pub in town. Durand had already ordered me a whisky – a double, and one for himself. I should’ve guessed he was up to something. He was sweaty and edgy. He kept turning around every few minutes, like he was worried somebody would show up and blow his brains out. I didn’t pay enough attention. I figured he was shit-scared that I’d already squealed to the cops, that they knew about the boy and they’d show up any minute. Turned out I was way off target. I don’t know what he slipped in my drink but I started talking and didn’t stop. He asked questions and I couldn’t shut the fuck up. I told him all sorts of shit I shouldn’t have, about my business and then boom! He undid his shirt. Fucker was wearing a wire. He told me to keep quiet about losing my boy or I’d go down for supplying underage kids to the club and once I was banged up in jail, I’d be meeting my maker sooner than I intended.’
‘He threatened to have you killed in prison?’
‘Uh-huh.’
He pats his pocket, pulls out a packet of cigarettes and flips one between his lips. He searches again for a lighter, flicking it several times before it sparks. ‘You want to know the truth? The truth is my boy was killed and the scu
mbag who murdered him, well, he had mighty powerful friends.’ He waves his cigarette in her direction as he speaks. ‘One of them was a copper, and together with Durand, they set me up good and proper, so I wouldn’t speak out about what really happened. And they refused to pay me a penny. Nothing! Bastards like them, with money and influence, they get away with anything . . . including murder.’
‘We know the boy was underage, but what about the two girls you also sent to the club that night. How old were they?’ In an off-the-record conversation with Kate, Superintendent John Dickson had confessed to having sex with one of them on the night in question, although he’d insisted the girl was an adult. Farai eyes her cautiously.
‘You sure you won’t drag me into this?’
‘I can’t force you to stand in a witness box and swear on the Bible, but if you tell me, I’ll find a way to use it without you taking any fall. For now, it won’t go any further than us. How old were the girls you sent to the club that night in January?’
He sucks on his cigarette, the end briefly glowing orange-red.
‘They were fourteen.’
‘Both of them?’
‘Yes. The request was specifically for girls and none over the age of fourteen.’ It’s as she suspected. Dickson had slept with a minor.
‘I need their names.’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Then I can’t give you this money.’ She holds his stare until he gives a low laugh.
‘Okay, DI Young. Their names are Rosa and Stanka.’
‘And do these girls have second names?’
‘I’m sure they do, but I only know their first names.’
‘Do you know the names of the guests they slept with?’
‘No idea. If the girls knew, they didn’t tell me.’
‘Can I speak to Rosa and Stanka?’
‘No. They’re no longer in Stoke. I thought it wise to move my operation.’
‘Where to?’
‘It doesn’t matter where.’
‘Who was the policeman involved in setting you up?’
‘Before I tell you that, I want my money. I’m not getting stitched up again.’
She passes him the stuffed envelope. The full amount is there in twenty-pound notes and he seems happy enough to accept her honesty without checking. ‘Count it, if you want.’
‘I trust you.’
‘You don’t know me. Count it.’
He shoves it in his pocket. ‘I know it’s all there. You wouldn’t cross me. I like you, DI Kate Young. You’ve got balls and a look in your eyes that tells me you aren’t afraid of anything or anyone.’
‘Tell me, Farai. Who convinced Durand to wear a wire and set you up?’
‘Bloke called Dickson.’
‘John Dickson?’
‘I only know his surname.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Yeah. Durand let slip his name when I threatened him afterwards. Said if anything happened to him or his family, or if I even turned up again, Dickson would have me banged up so quickly I wouldn’t have time to kiss my arse goodbye.’
‘And has Dickson contacted you?’
He seems to consider her question as he blows smoke into the night air. ‘I heard he was looking for me and my girls, but by then I’d disappeared, and I intend on staying disappeared. I made an exception for you. You got justice for my boy, and that fucker Dickson needs bringing down. You’re the person to do that.’
This information is certainly enough to charge Dickson with having sex with a minor, but she wants more. Dickson had been good friends with the man who’d killed the young male prostitute, the same man who’d hired a gunman to murder her husband, Chris. As far as she’s concerned, Dickson is guilty of more than sleeping with an underage sex worker and she is going to keep digging until she has every scrap of evidence possible to send him down for a long time. She has one last question. ‘Did Durand ever mention anything about hiring a hitman?’ It was a long shot and, judging by his expression, a pointless one.
‘Not to me. But you know as well as I do, when a person is in danger and cornered, they’ll do anything to survive, no matter who they are.’ He sucks briefly on the cigarette, letting the smoke encircle his words. ‘Now, we’re done. You know everything I know. Don’t contact me again. This was a one-off.’ He doesn’t wait for a response, as he slips past her into the darkness.
Back in her car she undoes her blouse again and rummages in the sports bra for the tiny black device she’d secreted there. As large as a paperclip, measuring only 0.7 inches by 1.8 inches by 0.24 inches, it promises a pickup audio range of up to forty feet. She turns it off then says, ‘Let’s hope it caught his every word.’
‘It ought to have. You tested it enough times in various bras,’ she replies in her dead husband Chris’s voice. ‘Let’s get it back home and find out.’
CHAPTER ONE
Cracks of thunder rumbled in the distance. Soft rain began to patter and, in the warm glow of the overhead lamp, formed dark golden circles like coins on the slabs. Laura slipped the key into the metal postbox, where it landed with a clatter, and set off on the path that ran one hundred metres down a slope, towards the main road. She followed it by instinct rather than vision, guided only by the dim light thrown over the car park at the foot of the descent.
She’d left the class later than intended, detained by two of the regulars who’d questioned her about the virtues of Bikram hot yoga, and then gone on to talk at length about their recent trip to India. Ordinarily, the hour-long class would have been over by eight and she’d now be at home, Charcoal, her Persian cat, curled on her lap and a cold glass of wine in her hand.
The sky ripped apart with a flash that whitewashed the entire area with its brilliance. The storm was fast approaching. With any luck, she’d make it back to her cottage before it began raining more heavily.
It had been seven months since Laura had moved from Stafford, a busy town of around nine hundred thousand residents, to Abbots Bromley, a village approximately fourteen miles away, with a population of less than two thousand. The sudden and unexpected break-up of her relationship had sent her already fragile mental health spiralling, making the move essential. When faced with the emotional fallout, Laura had reacted in the only way she knew how, and fled from the person who’d crushed her love with cruel words and unwarranted iciness. The green fields surrounding Abbots Bromley, the quaint cottages that lined the streets and the gentler pace of life had all assisted her recovery and although she still had some way to go, she was making progress at last.
The twice-weekly exercise class was proving more beneficial than any of the therapy sessions she’d been attending. Her doctor had advised her to take up yoga a couple of years ago, to help relieve the stress that swamped her on a daily basis. She’d never imagined she’d pass on her knowledge to others. When the regular instructor had been called away to care for her sick mother in Bakewell, Laura had willingly stepped in, initially for a couple of weeks, which had since turned into six. She hadn’t minded.
A sound like a gargantuan tractor rumbled across the heavens and she drew her cardigan more tightly over her loose top. She’d almost reached the car park and only had to cross the road and scurry along the pavement towards the cottages at the far end of the village to be safely out of the weather. Hers was a mid-terrace, one-bedroomed, renovated property. It had once belonged to the private school, part of Abbots Bromley’s history since the 1800s, until it had been requisitioned for housing.
It never ceased to surprise her how peaceful the village was. It was cut off, not only from the nearby towns, but from modern-day life. The hub of the community was the village hall where every activity or event, from art classes to theatrical performances, took place. Here, people knew their neighbours, and would gather in the pub, butcher’s or local store to gossip. Laura hadn’t progressed to that stage yet. She wasn’t ready to share anything about herself with her neighbours, well meaning or otherwise. What she treasur
ed above everything else was the anonymity she had here. In Abbots Bromley, she was only known as the temporary yoga teacher, her past completely erased. And she wanted to keep it that way.
A thunderclap reverberated throughout her entire body, rooting her to a moss-covered slab and a primitive instinct accelerated her heartbeat. Storms didn’t usually unnerve her and she struggled to comprehend why she felt so uneasy this time. There were only a few cars in the restaurant car park and nobody in sight. Ten metres separated her from the road and the lane home. She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, preparing to make a dash for it.
The arm came out of nowhere. Muscular and powerful, it smashed against her neck, rendering all thought and action impossible, and within seconds, she slipped to the ground.
DI Kate Young drained her glass and studied the label on the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon bottle. It had cost her stepsister a fortune, well over the usual five pounds Kate was prepared to splash out on a bottle of wine. But there was no denying it had been delicious. Although she had no idea what guava was supposed to taste like, she’d appreciated the fruity flavours and subtle hint of herbs. Trust Tilly to choose a wine that was 13 per cent proof alcohol and insist on opening the second bottle.
Kate placed the bottle on the carpet and then stretched and yawned. It was the most relaxed she’d felt in a long while. The alcohol had helped dull the anxiety she’d been experiencing over seeing Tilly again. It had been decades since they’d parted, a lifetime since Tilly had headed to Australia, arm in arm with Jordan, Kate’s ex-fiancé. Years of estrangement and hatred. Too much wasted time. Too many harboured grievances. But now she was here in Kate’s home, together with her five-year-old son, Daniel, the spitting image of his mother, with glossy brown hair, eyes like shining conkers and a smile that had pierced Kate’s heart.
The wine had played its part, making Kate feel more mellow and relaxed, and with Daniel fast asleep, she and Tilly had been catching up. It was gone midnight but sleep was still some way off. Kate was unwound, not tired. She glanced at the photograph of her deceased husband, the man who had advised her to rekindle her relationship with Tilly. He’d convinced her to let bygones be bygones, reminded her that nothing was more important than family and, able at last to let go of the hurt, she’d allowed Tilly back into her life. Chris had been her crutch. With him by her side, she’d managed to banish the past and all the hurt. He’d saved her from herself, yet he was gone, taken from her, and Tilly was back.
