Tharpe swallowed, blinked a few times. Then he lurched across to the knife block on the counter, but stopped himself when he realised it was empty. Lockhart had removed them earlier, just in case the trawler captain tried anything stupid.
‘Trust me, Jonah, this will all be much easier if we can sit down and talk. And no one needs to get hurt,’ he added.
The older man crumpled slightly as the tension dropped from his limbs. Lockhart had seen this before; the awareness that you’ve run out of options, that you can’t escape. Watery, pale grey eyes searched his face. ‘Who are you?’
‘Sit,’ commanded Lockhart.
Tharpe took a chair at the large wooden kitchen table.
Lockhart remained standing. ‘You’re going to tell me everything,’ he said.
‘What about?’
Reaching into his coat pocket, Lockhart pulled out a rectangle of paper. He unfolded it and placed it on the table in front of Tharpe. Immediately, he could see the older man recognised Jess’s face in the photo.
The trawlerman squinted, shook his head. ‘Who’s that? Never seen her before.’ But his initial reaction had already betrayed him.
Without hesitating, Lockhart took one step towards Tharpe, grabbed his collar with both hands and hauled him to his feet. He dragged him across the kitchen towards the Aga and pushed the kettle to one side.
‘The one on the left’s the hot one, right?’
‘No!’ cried Tharpe. ‘No!’
Lockhart forced his head down towards the large hotplate.
‘Stop!’ Tharpe screamed. ‘Please!’
‘Don’t fuck me about, Jonah.’
Tharpe’s face was just an inch or two from the iron. Lockhart could feel the heat from it on his hands, even through the gloves he was wearing.
‘You’re going to tell me everything you know about her,’ said Lockhart calmly. ‘And don’t try and mug me off. I know about your little import and distribution business. And your sons’ involvement in it.’
Tharpe was silent for a moment. Then he began to make a little whining noise. It grew into a strange gurgling sound as his face contorted. Lockhart realised he was crying.
‘Jonah!’
‘I’m sorry,’ howled the fisherman between huge sobs.
‘Sorry?’ Lockhart pulled him up straight again. ‘What for?’
Tharpe’s body was shaking. ‘I didn’t know…’
‘Didn’t know what?’
The older man’s head sank to his chest, his eyes screwed shut.
Lockhart marched him back over to the table, sat him in the chair. Pulled another chair opposite and leant in close. ‘Calm the fuck down, Jonah,’ he said, just as his own pulse was quickening. After all these years, was he about to find out what had happened to Jess? ‘Just tell me what you know about her.’
Tharpe took a few breaths, wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. Lockhart forced himself to wait.
‘She was never supposed to be on the boat,’ said Tharpe eventually.
Lockhart’s mind was racing. He tried to keep control, think straight. ‘Your boat?’
Tharpe nodded.
‘When was this?’
‘Fourth of February, two years ago.’
‘Go on,’ instructed Lockhart.
‘You-you have to believe me, I wouldn’t have gone out in that weather if it’d been my choice.’
‘What happened?’ Lockhart’s voice was low and heavy now.
‘I had to take her back.’
‘Who?’ He grabbed the piece of paper with Jess’s photo, held it up. ‘This woman?’
Tharpe nodded again, his lips trembling now.
‘Back where?’
‘Belgium. She was going to Holland.’
Jess had been in Holland? And travelling informally on a fishing trawler? What was she doing there? Then Lockhart recalled the Belgium link to Tharpe’s boat and the probable Dutch origin of the MDMA in Nick’s warehouse. He shut his eyes a moment, composed himself.
‘You had to take this woman back to Holland in your boat?’
‘Yes. But she… she’d taken something.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. Some sort of drugs. She’d been all over the place, screaming and shouting at him, saying she didn’t want to leave.’
‘Shouting at who?’ asked Lockhart, though he already had a pretty good idea.
Tharpe pressed his lips together.
‘Who?’ demanded Lockhart.
‘Her brother.’
In that moment, Lockhart felt as though he could murder Nick without thinking twice. He felt the agitation rising in his body, the tingling in his hands and feet, the slight fogging at the edge of his vision. He was on the verge of losing it. His mind was already playing out how that night had gone, but he had to hear it from Tharpe.
‘What happened next?’
Tharpe shook his head slowly, his mouth open now. There was a trail of spit running between his lips.
Lockhart slammed his hand on the table. ‘What. Fucking. Happened?’
‘I’m sorry.’ A tear ran down the older man’s craggy cheek.
Lockhart’s vision was whiting out, now, only the centre still in focus. He flexed his hands, breathing hard. ‘Tell me.’
‘She…’
‘What?’
‘She fell in the water.’ Tharpe shut his eyes again, grimacing.
‘And?’
‘It was at night, in a storm.’ His voice was quieter now.
The only sound in the kitchen was Lockhart’s foot tapping on the flagstone.
‘We searched for over an hour,’ whispered Tharpe. ‘Round in circles. Used the sonar. But we knew—’
‘You kept looking, right?’
‘We couldn’t. The storm was picking up and we had to get to harbour. Otherwise the whole boat might’ve gone down.’
‘So, you just left her in the water to die?’ Lockhart felt detached, almost as if a third person was speaking, and he was just observing.
‘There was no sign of her. He-he said that, if I told anyone, they’d kill me.’
‘Who’s “he”?’
‘Her brother. Nick.’
‘And who’s they? Who’d kill you?’
‘The suppliers.’
‘Of the drugs? The MDMA?’
Tharpe nodded. ‘Nasty fuckers, he said they were.’
Lockhart wiped his hands over his face. Now he understood why Nick was pushing so hard to have Jess declared dead. Because his brother-in-law knew that, barring a miracle, she had drowned somewhere in the North Sea two years earlier.
What happened next felt as though it was entirely outside of his control.
He crossed to the sink, pushed the plug down, and turned the tap on full. Then he marched over to Tharpe and, without a word, lifted the trawlerman from his chair.
Initially, Tharpe made no effort to resist, until he realised what was going on. Lockhart dragged him to the sink and pushed his head down below the rim of the rapidly filling basin, holding him tight as the water gushed in below his face.
‘No! Don’t!’ Tharpe shrieked, writhing to escape Lockhart’s grip.
But he held firm, his arms and hands like granite. Tharpe swung a few elbows and fists at him. They connected with Lockhart’s ribs, but he barely felt the impact. The water level continued to rise as Tharpe’s protests became more frantic, his movements increasingly desperate.
From nowhere, the image of Gabriel Sweeney came into his head. Hanging from the tree branch by his skipping rope. And then the moment when Lockhart had decided to cut him down, because justice was more important. He couldn’t be the one to dispense it.
But this was different. This was Jess.
The water was touching Tharpe’s face now. Lockhart silently lowered his head further down and a single, large bubble of air rose to the surface. He felt his own jaw tighten, his muscles tense. Pushed harder.
You don’t have to do this, Dan.
The voice seemed to
come from nowhere. But it had been loud and clear. And it belonged to Jess. His grip loosened slightly, and he glanced over to the photo of her on the table. Her bright blue eyes, wide smile. The little dimples in her cheeks.
Suddenly, he let go.
Tharpe’s head reared up and he made a choking noise, drawing in a huge lungful of air and coughing so hard he doubled over and fell to the stone floor.
Lockhart felt his vision clearing, the awareness of his surroundings quickly returning. And he knew what he needed to do now. Kneeling down, he got close to Tharpe’s face. Checked he was breathing properly.
‘You’re going to give me every single detail, Jonah,’ he said. ‘About her, about Nick, and about these drug suppliers. Everything. Do you understand?’
Tharpe nodded meekly, then broke out coughing again.
There were still a ton of questions but, finally, Lockhart believed he knew his wife’s ultimate fate. How he would deal with that knowledge was something else altogether, too big to even think about here and now. But, assuming that Tharpe was telling the truth, there was at least one thing Lockhart understood clearly about Jess. That she was, almost certainly, dead.
A number of people had been responsible for that.
And it was time for them to pay.
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A Letter from Chris
Dear reader,
I hope you enjoyed Lost Souls, book three in the Lockhart and Green series. If you did, please do rate it online, and leave a review if you have time.
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Though Lost Souls is fiction, it draws on a number of real issues. The statistics around vulnerable children and young people quoted in the book are sadly accurate: around ten thousand under-18s go missing each year in London alone. Many of those are forced to leave their homes for reasons completely outside of their control. While about eighty per cent are located within a day, some remain missing and will end up homeless, where they are at even greater risk of harm. Organisations like Shelter, Centrepoint and Railway Children in the UK offer incredible support to those young people, helping them regain stability in their lives. Do look up those charities if you’re interested to find out more about their work and donate to them.
In terms of crime background, the killer in Lost Souls takes grim inspiration from two Latin American serial murder cases of the 1990s: Luis Garavito in Colombia and Marcelo Costa de Andrade in Brazil. Though neither case is particularly well-known in the UK, their similarities are striking. Both men targeted street children and used deception to lure them to isolated places where they sexually assaulted and then murdered them. Andrade appeared to believe he was ‘saving’ their souls from a life of suffering. Garavito was particularly prolific; he has around one hundred and forty confirmed victims, but may have killed up to three hundred children in less than a decade before he was caught – roughly equivalent to a murder every ten days. Reading about these terrible crimes made me want to understand the psychology and motives behind such unthinkable acts, but also to research how children might become vulnerable to predators like Garavito and Andrade.
The sub-plot around child disappearance and trafficking is loosely based on the cases of Georgia Tann in the US and sisters Delfina and María de Jesús González in Mexico, while the use of a machine learning computer programme to uncover crimes is rooted in real life, too. In 2017, Sasha Reid, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, found a pattern in missing persons data which ultimately led Canadian police to the discovery of Bruce McArthur, a serial killer who had been operating undetected in the city for eight years.
All of these cases make for harrowing yet fascinating reading into how detectives are finally able to catch up with cunning, long-term perpetrators of serious crimes. They also raise important questions about how their activities were missed for so long. Sadly, the answers to those questions often seem to lie in the victims’ disempowerment due to their background, social status and identity. That discrimination is something that needs to change.
Thank you for your support to my writing. If you’d like to get in contact, please drop me a line on Facebook, Twitter, or via my website. And do keep an eye out for my next book – a standalone psychological thriller publishing in September 2021!
Best wishes,
Chris
www.cjmerritt.co.uk
Books by Chris Merritt
Detectives Zac Boateng and Kat Jones series
Bring Her Back
Last Witness
Life or Death
Detectives Lockhart and Green series
Knock Knock
Who’s Next?
Lost Souls
Available in Audio
Detectives Lockhart and Green series
Knock Knock (available in the UK and the US)
Who’s Next? (available in the UK and the US)
Knock Knock
Detectives Lockhart and Green Book 1
Get it here!
Natasha Mayston wasn’t expecting anyone to knock on her door so late at night. And she has no idea that the face staring back at her is the last one she’ll ever see…
As Detective Dan Lockhart is called to a wealthy London street to investigate Natasha’s death, he’s startled by the similarity to a previous case. Noticing the cable-tie restraints and the tiny scratches on Natasha’s wedding finger, Dan already knows what he will find if he looks in her mouth – the metal ball which choked her to death. He knows Natasha isn’t the killer’s first victim and is certain that he will strike again.
Months earlier, Kim Hardy was found in the same position in a run-down hotel across the city – an identical silver ball in her throat. But Kim’s murderer was caught and sent to prison – did they arrest the wrong man? And what connects the two victims? Fearing that he’s dealing with a psychopathic serial killer, Dan calls in psychologist Dr Lexi Green to help him to get into the perpetrator’s mind. Tough and smart, Lexi will stop at nothing to hunt down the man responsible for the deaths.
Then, another body is discovered, just as Lexi finds a clue online leading to the killer. Dan’s team aren’t convinced, but in pushing Lexi away from the investigation, they force her to dig further into the case on her own. Convinced that she’s on to something, she puts herself in unthinkable danger… but can Dan piece together the clues and identify the killer before it’s too late?
Fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Dugoni and Cara Hunter will love this thrilling new series from Chris Merritt. From an explosive start to a heart-stopping finale, you will not want to put this book down!
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Who's Next?
Detectives Lockhart and Green Book 2
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Stumbling to the ground, he claws at the earth around him, trying to stabilise himself, but his attacker is on him in seconds. As he stares at the lights of the bustling streets on the other side of the park gates, he doesn’t even have time to shout for help before everything goes black.
When the body of wealthy businessman Charles Stott is found dead on Wimbledon Common, covered in bruises just feet away from his luxury home, Detective Dan Lockhart is called to investigate the shocking scene. Examining the sickeningly disfigured body before him, Lockhart knows he’s dealing with a brutal killer. Looking more closely, he notices something on the victim’s neck: a small, crudely drawn symbol in black ink. It seems the murderer has marked his victim, but why? Dan needs to get inside the perpetrator’s mind, so he contacts psychologist Dr Lexi Green.
As the ensuing media circus puts pressure on Dan and Lexi’s investigation, another victim is found and the headlines are quick to report a serial killer is on the loose. The body of a successful lawyer has been discovered in a park with the same bruising and hand-drawn symbol on his neck. Dan fears that more victims will follow.
As the case intensifies, Dan uncovers a new lead on his missing wife, Jess, who disappeared eleven years ago. Determined to follow it up, he must choose between tracking down a serial murderer and finding Jess. Can he make the impossible decision before the killer strikes once more?
Fans of Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott and Cara Hunter will love this thrilling new series from Chris Merritt. From an explosive start to a heart-stopping finale, you will not want to put this book down!
Order it now!
Bring Her Back
Detectives Zac Boateng and Kat Jones Book 1
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As he watches his daughter turn the corner and out of sight, he hears the shots. He’d know that sound anywhere. He shouts her name. Silence. All he can do is run.
It’s been five years since Detective Zac Boateng’s daughter was murdered. Her killer was never found. Now Zac is back working for the Metropolitan Police, more determined than ever to bring the city’s killers to justice.
Lost Souls Page 33
