Close Your Eyes

by Rachel Abbott

  Close Your Eyes

  Rachel Abbott

  Close Your Eyes

  Published in 2021 by Black Dot Publishing Ltd.

  Copyright © Rachel Abbott 2021.

  Rachel Abbott has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions or locales is completely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

  Find out more about the author and her other books at

  http://www.rachel-abbott.com/

  Contents

  Prologue

  Tuesday

  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

  Wednesday

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Thursday

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Friday

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Monday

  Chapter 82

  Author’s note

  A letter to my readers

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Rachel Abbott

  The Tom Douglas Series

  The Stephanie King Series

  Prologue

  I’m a bad person. I’m flawed. I’m guilty of greed and envy. I’m selfish, lazy. Try as I might, I don’t seem able to improve, and my attempts to atone for my sins are ridiculed.

  Any moment now, I will be summoned. I will stand alone, clenching and unclenching my fists, listening as my defects are exposed in all their glory. I feel weak, shaky, maybe because I haven’t eaten today; nor did I sleep last night. I was instructed to rehearse my testimony, to be ready to confess to my shortcomings. But sleep is difficult. To sleep is to dream – and I can’t bear that.

  I walk to my bedroom window and look out over the garden. It’s been hot for days, and it’s a relief to see the first splats of thick, heavy rain hit the glass. I grasp the catch and pull the window open as the squall intensifies, relishing the feel of the cool water on my hot skin. A slow, steady drip from a faulty gutter splashes onto the terrace below, getting faster as the storm escalates, its pace keeping time with my racing heart.

  I tell myself I shouldn’t panic. It’s not the first time I’ve suffered such humiliation, and I doubt it will be the last. It’s all part of making me a better person, someone who is worth loving.

  In truth I don’t deserve anyone’s love, and although my every weakness is about to be exposed, dissected, my true sins of betrayal, treachery and disloyalty will not be mentioned. No one will shout ‘Traitor!’ or ‘Judas!’ because only two people know what I did. And they will say nothing.

  They don’t need to. I know what I am.

  Tuesday

  1

  Tom groaned and turned over, trying to ignore the steady buzz that was breaking through his dreams. He’d been up twice with a teething Harry, and it seemed only moments since he’d drifted back to sleep. Exciting as their son’s first tooth was it was also exhausting, so Tom had offered to take care of Harry overnight to give Louisa a good night’s rest. Being woken by his vibrating mobile at 3.45 a.m. was the last thing he needed, but he couldn’t ignore it.

  He pushed himself upright, swung his legs out of bed and took the phone into the bathroom.

  ‘Becky. What can I do for you?’ he asked, stifling a yawn as he ran a hand through his short, dark blond hair.

  ‘We’ve got a body, Tom. Sorry to wake you, but you need to come and take a look.’

  He resisted the urge to sigh. It wasn’t Becky’s fault, and he didn’t suppose she wanted to be up in the middle of the night any more than he did.

  ‘You sound like you’re outside. Where am I going?’

  ‘We’re not far from Roe Green, down a narrow alley. Head on the motorway towards Worsley. I’ll text you the location. Jumbo’s here with a team, but we won’t move anything until you arrive.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll be with you in about forty-five minutes.’

  He took a deep breath and switched on the shower. At least Jumbo, or Dr Jumoke Osoba to give him his full title, was the appointed crime-scene manager. He had more experience than anyone Tom had ever worked with, and he wasn’t afraid to add his own hypotheses to his professional assessment either.

  Tom switched the shower to cold for the last minute, hoping it would liven him up. He breathed in sharply as the chilly water drenched his body and dropped his head to watch the rivulets run down his legs and splash onto the tiled floor. Drying himself quickly, he returned to the bedroom and crouched down beside Louisa to kiss her gently on the lips. Her mouth turned up in a smile, even though her eyes remained closed.

  ‘That’s a lovely way to wake up,’ she murmured.

  ‘It would be even better if I could get back in there with you,’ he answered. ‘But I can’t. I’m sorry, darling – I’ve got to go out. Harry’s been awake twice, but he’s asleep now. I thought I should warn you so you’re mentally on baby alert.’

  ‘Never off it, Tom.’

  That was true. Even when he got up to see to Harry, Tom knew Louisa always stirred at their baby’s cries.

  He resisted the temptation to look in on his son, worried that any sound might wake him. Instead, he satisfied himself that he was sleeping by checking the video on the monitor. He kissed Louisa again and headed for the door.

  As he walked along the landing,
he glanced at Lucy’s bedroom door, standing slightly ajar. The bed was empty, as he knew it would be. He missed his daughter more with every passing day.

  He ran downstairs, picked up his keys, phone, wallet, identification – everything exactly where he had left it the night before in case he was called out – pulled the door closed as quietly as possible and headed for his car, stifling another yawn.

  The dark clouds that had been hanging over the north-west of England all day had disappeared, and the roads were mercifully empty. The sky would begin to lighten soon, and at least it was warm and had finally stopped raining. Tom had spent too many nights of his career standing around in the cold and dark – often in freezing rain – chilled to the bone as he waited for the Home Office pathologist to arrive.

  As he headed through Worsley, he thought how much he had always liked this part of Manchester, or Salford as it technically was, with its mature trees and well-kept houses. Sadly that hadn’t prevented it from being the scene of a murder, and not the first he’d attended in this neighbourhood. Thoughts of the last time, of the young girl they had found in the woods nearby, made him shiver. It was a case that still haunted him, as did every case involving children.

  Turning into a side street, he could see patrol cars and unmarked vehicles blocking the road ahead and he pulled up behind them. All the activity seemed to be taking place down a narrow passageway that ran from the road past a couple of attractive cottages. Tom gave his name to the police officer guarding the top of the alley and set off, following the approach path laid down by the CSI team.

  Breathing in the musty smell of wet earth, he headed towards his colleagues as the first tweet of a lone bird announced the start of a new day. It was a little too late in the summer for a full-blown dawn chorus, and Tom was relieved: there was something eerie about listening to a symphony of sweet birdsong while staring at a bloodied corpse.

  At the sound of his footsteps, Becky turned from where she was talking to a man with a shaved head who was bouncing on the balls of his feet: DS Rob Cumba. The young detective had only been with the team for six months, and he seemed to find it impossible to keep still, even at this ungodly hour.

  ‘Morning Becky, Rob.’

  ‘Morning, boss,’ they answered in unison.

  ‘What have we got, Becky?’

  Becky nodded to where Tom could see a dark object on the ground – a body, curved into a foetal position as if protecting itself, lying in the remains of a puddle left behind after the earlier rain. From where he was standing Tom had no idea of the age, sex or ethnicity of the victim, but knew that, just hours earlier, this had been a living, breathing person. He took a long slow breath and turned to Becky.

  ‘A woman, early thirties,’ she said. ‘We believe her to be Genevieve Strachan – lived at the last cottage you passed.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘Blow to the back of the head,’ Becky said. ‘Then stabbed twice in the upper abdomen.’

  ‘Who found her?’

  ‘Her husband, Niall Strachan. He’s about to be moved from the house so we can let Jumbo’s team in. His clothes have been bagged. They’re covered in blood – the victim’s, as far as we know. He says he tried to revive her when he found her, but we’ll see what the evidence tells us.’

  Tom knew what Becky was suggesting. It wasn’t unusual for the person finding the body to turn out to be the killer, but the pattern of blood on his clothing should tell them more. If Niall Strachan had tried to revive his wife, the blood would be smeared. If he’d killed her, or been there when she was killed, they would expect to see blood spatter.

  As Tom was brought up to speed, the activity carried on around the body a few metres away. Men and women in white Tyvek suits were marking any spots of evidence, oblivious to the conversation between the detectives.

  ‘Do we have any idea what time this happened?’

  ‘According to the husband, it has to have been between eleven p.m., when he was last in contact with the victim, and just after one a.m., when he arrived home,’ Becky said. ‘He’d been at an investors’ meeting in central Manchester and when he got back his wife wasn’t in the living room, although the TV was on. It was a while before he realised she wasn’t in the house – I presume he thought she’d gone to bed. He tried to phone her but got no answer. That’s when he decided to run a check to see where her phone was.’

  Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘He was tracking her mobile? I’d love to hear what Louisa would say if I suggested tracking hers.’

  Becky grinned. ‘The same as me, I expect. Good way to keep an eye on your kids, though. Anyway, in this case I think it’s all to do with Strachan’s business. He kept saying he wasn’t spying on her, but she was testing his app. I’ve no idea what he was talking about, but I thought that kind of detail could wait.’

  Tom nodded. ‘So that’s how he found her down here. It’s not the first place you’d think to look, is it? It’s not a path that’s likely to be used much at night – if at all – so if he hadn’t tracked her, she could have been here a while. Does it lead anywhere?’

  ‘Only to the Tyldesley Loopline.’

  ‘The what?’

  Rob answered. ‘It’s a walking and cycling track, boss, on what was the old railway line. It’s an offshoot of the Roe Green Loopline, which runs from Monton to the outskirts of Bolton.’

  ‘Okay, so no cars, I presume. But it’s a potential access point for the killer – on foot or even on a bike. Possibly even a motorbike at this time of night. Rob, we’ll need a map showing all the entrances to the Loopline – where it starts, ends, where people might park cars, et cetera. And when we do the house-to-house, we should ask if anyone heard a motorbike. Of course, whoever killed her may have walked straight down this path from the road or been hiding in one of the gardens further up the lane, so we’d better not get too hung up on the Loopline as the killer’s route, even though it seems a good option. Has the house been burgled?’

  ‘No signs of anything and no forced entry that we could see, but the CSIs will tell us more,’ Rob said. ‘The victim’s house keys were in her pocket. I guess she could have heard someone in the lane and come out to investigate.’

  ‘You’d have to be insane to come out here to check out a noise,’ Becky said. ‘I’m a copper and I’m used to putting myself in danger, but I’m not sure I’d venture onto this track on my own without letting someone know what I was about to do. It would have been pitch black. There was no moon last night after about nine thirty.’

  ‘Fair point,’ Tom said. ‘So why leave the house?’

  ‘Maybe she heard a scream or something. Either that, or someone lured her from the house.’

  ‘It’s all hypothetical for now, but if she arranged to meet someone, they could have made plans by text or a call. We need to get into her phone. Thanks for the update, both of you. I suppose I’d better take a look at the body.’

  Tom turned to where he could see Jumbo squatting down up ahead, fully suited and booted. The big man looked up and got to his feet at the sound of footsteps. For someone so large, he was surprisingly agile.

  ‘Tom,’ he said with a nod. ‘Sorry you got dragged out. The pathologist will be with us as soon as she can but she warned me she might be a while, so there’s a bit of hanging around to do, I’m afraid. The good news is that it’s Amelia Sanders.’

  Tom liked Amelia, or Amy as she preferred to be called, and appreciated her empathy for the victims and her brisk, professional attitude. A pain that she was delayed, though.

  ‘Until she gets here, any thoughts on time of death?’ he asked Jumbo.

  ‘Nothing that I would commit to, obviously. And don’t tell Amy that I’ve suggested anything – you know how well that would go down! But based on my not insignificant experience of corpses, I can tell you that she’s still slightly warm but has already started to stiffen a little. Not yet full rigor mortis. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Also bear in mind that she was smartly dressed
and all her make-up’s still on – so it’s unlikely she’d gone to bed and then got up again. We’ve rescued her phone. It was lying on the ground next to her. Her keys were in the pocket of what was once a white linen jacket. She was wearing heels too, so she’d not come out for a late-night stroll.’

  ‘It sounds like something brought her out – or she came out to meet someone.’

  ‘They don’t have a dog. I checked before I sent the team in. I didn’t want them attacked.’ Jumbo grinned. ‘I thought that if she’d come out with a dog before going to bed, then it might have been a random attack – maybe someone down here doing something they shouldn’t, and she caught them at it.’