The Perfect Victim

by Corrie Jackson

  Read what people are already saying about

  ‘Gripping . . . crime with a side order of chic’

  GLAMOUR

  ‘It’s original, amazingly written and tense. A cracker . . .’

  SUN

  ‘Crime meets couture in this gripping story’

  MARIE CLAIRE

  ‘A fast-paced, punchy, self-assured thriller from a writer who’s bound to go from strength to strength’

  RED

  ‘The dark underbelly of the modelling world is a gritty setting . . . Breaking Dead rushes along at a feverish pace, with a feisty heroine’

  GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

  ‘An edge of your seat thriller’

  HELLO MAGAZINE

  ‘If you like your holiday reads fast-paced and edge-of-your-sun lounger, this one’s for you’

  BRIDES MAGAZINE

  ‘Jackson hits the ground not just running, but sprinting in a fast-paced, atmospheric story . . . Brimming with angst, anger, anguish and action, this is just the start of what promises to be an enthralling new crime series’

  LANCASHIRE EVENING POST

  ‘Breaking Dead has the feel of a noir movie, with up-market hotels, seedy flats and the brightly-lit newsroom. It’s tightly-plotted, fast-moving and I devoured it greedily in two sittings’

  CRIME REVIEW

  ‘Deliciously well drawn, intriguing . . . a pacy, intelligent and bang on thriller, darkly observant and grimly realistic . . . ’

  LIZ LOVES BOOKS

  ‘It did NOT disappoint at all. I can’t wait to read more from this author because she knows exactly how to write a gripping crime story, with real and believable characters and with one hell of a brilliant plot. Breaking Dead is an exciting and fresh read in a crowded genre . . . I cannot recommend it enough’

  BOOK ADDICT SHAUN

  Contents

  2 April 1988

  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

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For my mum and dad

  2 April 1988

  His mum is sleeping.

  Her spidery limbs are tucked into the folds of the sofa. Her jeans button is undone, and the green shirt she’s worn for three days straight is untucked, exposing a roll of white porridgy flesh. The yellow light from the lamp in the corner illuminates the sticky trail leaking out of her mouth. Her throat catches, and every breath sends a sour cloud towards him. The boy reaches forward to touch her chestnut hair, then pulls back, swallowing his tears.

  He chews his fingernail down to where it hurts, stares at his trainers, scuffed, with a hole in the toe. He has small feet for his age. Small everything for his age. Puberty has fucked him over. There are hints, a deepening voice, baby-fluff on his chin, urges. But he’s lagging behind. He pretends not to care, but the weight of it sits in his stomach like a stone.

  The boy shivers and pulls his grey tracksuit top tightly around him. He glances at the candy-pink record player in the corner. His mum saved up for months to buy it. He can see her whirling round the sitting room in her grubby blue dressing gown, singing that pop song, ‘99 Red Balloons’, at the top of her voice. She didn’t know he was watching as she reached for the bottle of Blue Nun and downed the last two inches of rancid wine. Nor when she sank to the floor and retched into her hand.

  The boy glances at the clock: 11.48 p.m. He creeps to the fridge and snaps open a can of Coke. As the bubbles hit the back of his throat, he runs his eyes over the crayon picture taped to the fridge door. It’s been there for so many years the edges are curled and yellow. A woman with jagged brown hair and loopy legs, one longer than the other where the green crayon slipped. A little boy, whose feet are larger than his head. He stares at the scribbled blue heart between them and his breathing quickens.

  A shriek pierces the air outside and he looks nervously towards the window. A brick wall runs around the edge of a garden, and beyond it are fields. The washing line flaps in the breeze. The breeze, he thinks. Perfect.

  He crunches the Coke can between his small hands and leaves it on the counter. Then he pads towards the cellar door and lifts it to stop it scraping against the stone floor. The smell hits him in the face – wet-rot mixed with something else. Salt. Their cottage is only three miles from the sea and the briny air permeates everything: your house, your clothes, your skin. The boy doesn’t need to turn on the light. He feels his way down the wooden steps taking care to miss out the fourth step, which has broken away. As his feet hit concrete, something scuttles away. A mouse, probably. He sees them down here all the time.

  His heart bumps against his ribs as he pulls a torch from his pocket and shines it into the space behind the washing machine. He pulls out a brick and his fingers close around something feathery. The baby bird is as light as dry leaves. He’s amazed it’s still alive. It’s been in there for days. There are others buried deeper in the wall that haven’t been so lucky.

  He folds one hand round the bird and, with the other, he opens the laundry basket and digs around. The Blue Nun bottle is at the bottom, where his mum hid it. He waits a beat, then springs up the steps to the kitchen.

  As he tiptoes past his mum, a car shoots past, its headlights turning the sitting-room shadows cartoony. He freezes, not used to seeing cars in this remote place. His mum shifts, snorts, rubs her stomach with a stubby red fingernail. He counts to fifty. The bird quivers, soft and sick, in his hand. He places it on the carpet, beside his sleeping mum, where it twitches, then settles. It looks peaceful but its eyes are milky with death.

  The boy unscrews the bottle lid. Then he pours the liquid on the carpet, trails it around the sofa, over the cigarette butts, the ashtray, the empty wine boxes, the remains of a congealing pizza. It splashes onto his shoes, drips down his wrists. He saves the final drops for the baby bird.

  The boy takes one last look at his mum, then flicks the green lighter. The tiny flame shivers and he realises his hand is trembling. He cocks his head to one side, then snaps the lighter shut. His trainers squeak as he lurches – a childish zig-zag – across the kitchen and rips the crayon drawing from the fridge door. He rolls it into a cone then lights one end and tosses it onto the carpet. As the flames shoot forward in an angry orange stripe, words fill the boy’s head: He himself will be saved, but only through fire.

  The boy waits, his eyes watering, lungs filling with smoke as he watches the fire swallow up the bird. Then he drops to his knees and crawls into the hallway. He is about to open the front door when he hears coughing. It’s coming from the sitting room. His mum is awake. His hand hovers over the door handle. Then he remembers the crayon drawing.

  The woman. The boy. The heart.

/>   He opens the door and darts out into the dirty moonlight.

  1

  Present Day

  The dewy grass was wet against my ankles as I stood in the sunshine listening for signs of death. There, through the whine of a low-flying aircraft, I heard it: the staccato fizz of a police radio. I raced towards the river, kicking through drifts of pink blossoms. The Thames was mirror-flat and sparkled in the Monday-morning sunlight. I paused to glance at a trio of women with buggies. The one nearest me scratched her thick neck and squawked into a mobile phone. The other two balanced snotty toddlers on their hips. I could tell by their loose, easy gestures that they weren’t part of the story. A good crime reporter knows that the difference between a page-one splash and a shitty page-five is timing. On a fresh crime scene, I’m dealing in moments. Flashes. I never know how long I’ve got before the scene shuts down. Before yes becomes no.

  As I scanned the crowd, I stretched out the stiffness in my neck, trying to shrug off the weekend from hell. I’d crawled into bed on Friday evening and switched my phone off, and the world out. Three minutes in and my heart was galloping. Five minutes, my palms were on fire. Eight minutes, the negative thoughts thrashed against my ears like bats in the attic. I counted my breaths, just like my therapist, Dr Spado, taught me. Dr Spado is a new addition to my life. It was the London Herald’s policy that I check in with him, following a close shave with a serial killer, and a stint in Chelsea & Westminster hospital. I didn’t argue. To be frank, I could do with the help. But during my weekly visits to a stucco-fronted house on Leamington Row, it hadn’t taken long for Dr Spado to realise that my big black nightmares had very little to do with my run-in with death. You see, not long ago, my younger brother’s scrawny, filthy body washed up under Albert Bridge. Tommy was my lifeblood, my reason to get up every day. He was also a homeless drug addict. His death cut me in half. Suicide was the official story, but I’d recently discovered the truth, well, part of it.

  Tommy was murdered.

  I hadn’t got any further, and each day that Tommy’s killers walked free was a day I was failing him. Guilt and grief are toxic companions. They fill my head, my heart, my lungs until I can’t breathe. Nights are the worst. Without the thrum of day, there’s nowhere to hide. So, Dr Spado recommended ‘managed relaxation’ as a way to ward off the panic attacks that hit when I turn out the lights. Mostly, I resort to next-level help, ‘emergency measures’, he called it. Sometimes I stagger the sleeping pills. Other times, I throw them down in one, welcoming the slide into oblivion. Last night was a three-pill night, and those always make me feel hollowed-out.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket and I sighed. I’d only turned it back on this morning and was paying for the forty-eight-hour technology blackout. A flood of emails and voicemails that I hadn’t even begun to sift through.

  As I rubbed my gritty eyes, a woman in a red gilet, cradling a black terrier under her arm, shuffled towards me. The breeze whipped her chalky-grey curls around her face.

  ‘Don’t go closer, love. Trust me, you don’t want to see it.’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘A body. In the river. They just pulled it out.’ She pressed the dog into her ample chest, squashing a pair of thick librarian glasses.

  ‘Did you get much of a look?’ I pulled out my notebook, then caught her frown. ‘I’m a reporter.’

  The woman cocked her head to one side. ‘Which paper?’

  ‘The London Herald.’

  She shifted onto the toes of her flip-flops and sniffed. ‘I prefer the Post.’

  I smiled politely, nodded towards the river. ‘Can you describe what you saw?’

  The woman clucked at the squirming dog and her neck skin wrinkled like baggy tights. ‘This going in the paper?’

  ‘If it’s useful.’ I realised how rude that sounded, and cracked a smile. ‘Sorry, my boss just gave me an earful. If I don’t phone in with details . . .’ I mimed slitting my throat.

  She gave me a sharp look. ‘Perhaps you ought to find a different vocation.’

  I laughed and risked a glance at my watch. I wasn’t lying about my boss. Mack Winterson, the Herald’s News Editor, had called ten minutes ago.

  ‘Drop what you’re doing and get to Bishop’s Park. There’s a body.’

  I had just finished interviewing a member of Hammersmith ambulance crew who had collided with the number 14 bus on the corner of the Fulham Road. Mercifully no one was hurt but, even so, it looked bad ditching the guy mid-interview.

  ‘There’s something else.’ Mack sounded distracted. ‘We’ve got to fill a double-page spread.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Rowntree verdict is delayed. Jury member emergency.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  The national media was on high alert waiting for the outcome of the Eric Rowntree court case. Rowntree was a fifty-four-year-old plumber charged with killing his wife and three young sons. With large black sideburns, an oily ponytail and a small pouting mouth, Rowntree looked as if he’d aced an audition for ‘deranged killer’ in the kind of trash-movie that has critics sniggering into their fists. Apparently fed up with being the proverbial punchbag, his wife, Linda, kicked him out just before Halloween. Rumour has it she’d been shagging a local cab driver, Allen Holmes. Rowntree allegedly repaid her by slaughtering them all in their Battersea maisonette. Allegedly. Who was I kidding? Rowntree was guilty. Everyone knew it. But the prosecution had had a hard time proving it. The CCTV camera in the petrol station opposite Linda’s house was on the blink that night. Had it been working, it would have shown Rowntree slipping into the house. Still, they were making progress. We were just waiting for the confirmation. But the verdict was due at 5 p.m. yesterday, then at 9 a.m. this morning and now . . .

  I kicked the ground with the heel of my boot. ‘What else is on the bubble?’

  ‘As of this moment: sweet FA. No one’s been paying attention to anything else. We’re screwed.’

  I rolled my eyes. Mack wasn’t known for his grace under pressure. I could picture him pacing up and down by his desk, shiny black brogues scraping away what little of the blue Herald carpet was left by his desk, or ‘Mack’s Patch’ as it was dubbed in the office. Mack was a hard taskmaster, but his drive came from a place of fear. Fear that he wasn’t good enough, fear that he’d get found out. I pulled my jacket around me as the sun dipped behind a cloud. To say Mack and I had history was an understatement. Screwing my married boss was one of the more messed-up things I’d done lately. When your life blows up and you can’t see a way out you tend to make stupid decisions. A smarter one was ending the affair. Mack disagreed, but eventually he saw sense. He was divorcing his wife and, since then, we’d reached a delicate truce; agreed to put the past behind us and act like grown-ups. But there was nothing grown-up about the casual way we picked fights with each other. To be honest, I think we both missed the stress release. Losing yourself in someone else can be addictive.

  ‘Growler’s calling an emergency conference this morning. Do not come back empty-handed.’

  Growler was the Herald’s Editor, Philip Rowley; so-called for his high-pitched nasally voice. But he was as formidable as he was short. I liked to think we shared that, at least.

  A loud shout punctured the air. An officer leaned over the railings, one hand on his hat, the other pointing at something we couldn’t see.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ The dog lady’s voice was breathless.

  I strode towards the knot of people, notebook in hand, ready with my opening line but a female officer blocked my path. She was slim and neat with a chin that looked as if it had been chiselled in a pencil sharpener. She thrust it towards me, crossing her arms in front of her chest. ‘Can I help you, Miss Kent?’

  I recognised PC Debbie Waters.

  ‘Nice morning for a walk.’ I grinned at her, but she didn’t smile back. Waters was too smart to get sucked in, and I respected that about her. I’d heard on the grapevine that she was struggling to make the polici
ng job work around her little boy’s schedule after the recent split with her boyfriend. And by ‘grapevine’, I mean me leaning on every source I had. I like to know as much as possible about every new recruit. In my job, information is currency. I knew PC Waters was fast becoming DCI Sam Durand’s righthand officer. And where DCI Durand is concerned, I make it my business to know. We’ve worked together for years. Durand is a first-class police officer with the right amount of dirt on his hands. We’d grown close in recent months. Close enough to make me wonder if there was something more between us. I shook the image of Durand’s rugged face and auburn hair out of my mind. It was easier to tell myself that our relationship was based on scratching each other’s backs. Nothing more. At least, not in this lifetime. I’ve learned the hard way that mixing work and pleasure was the fastest route to a P45. If there were rumours about anything more between Durand and PC Waters, I put it down to idle gossip. The same noise that follows any vaguely successful woman in a male-dominated industry.

  ‘I’m not trespassing.’ I gestured towards the blue and white police tape.

  Waters glanced towards the river. Her long brown plait swung over her shoulder. A crimson ribbon was tied to the end. I pictured her that morning; the extra few seconds she’d spent fastening it to her hair. Precious seconds she could have spent with her little boy.

  ‘How’s life on the Force?’

  ‘Glorious. How’s life at the Herald?’ Her eyes scanned my face, taking in the bloodshot eyes, dark circles and unwashed hair. I knew she wanted to ask more. Waters had seen me at my worst. The days I had lain in a hospital bed, unshowered and pale, my stale breath filling my nostrils, unable to look in the mirror at the purple bruises dotting my neck. When Waters took my statement in that stark white room, she pretended not to notice the tremor in my voice, or the way I gripped the bed. I found out later that Waters called the Herald a couple of times to check how I was doing. It was a kindness I wouldn’t forget.

  ‘I saw your piece on the Edgware Road riot,’ she said. ‘Nicely handled.’

  I smiled, nodded towards the river. ‘So, what have we got?’