SECONDS TO DIE a totally gripping serial killer thriller with a twist (Detective Claudia Nunn Book 2)
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SECONDS
TO DIE
A totally gripping serial killer thriller with a twist
REBECCA BRADLEY
DI Claudia Nunn Book 2
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
First published in Great Britain in 2021
© Rebecca Bradley
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Rebecca Bradley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Cover art by Nick Castle
ISBN: 978-1-78931-734-3
CONTENTS
Prologue
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
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
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
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
Acknowledgements
ALSO BY REBECCA BRADLEY
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Prologue
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Claudia’s eyes were heavy. Her head fuzzy. Her body leaden.
She had no concept of where she was or what was happening. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. She wasn’t at home or at work. This wasn’t her bed. Something rigid was sticking into her neck, which was at a weird angle.
She clawed through her mind for her last memories. The killer they were investigating had targeted her. Her father had come home with her for protection. She’d made dinner.
Pain sliced through her forehead. She winced. Whatever her location was she was moving. Rolling and bumping. But it was dark. She still couldn’t open her eyes. They were heavy, weighted down in the fog of unconsciousness. Her shoulders were killing her.
She remembered the police car. Something was wrong with the cops inside. They were supposed to be protecting her, but they were too still.
Fear gripped her stomach at the memory.
What happened?
Where was she?
Something about slippers?
Things had gone fuzzy then, and all she remembered was fighting the darkness that was grabbing her brain, pulling her down into the inky black. Before it took her, she remembered being pushed into the back of a car.
Shit.
Her eyes flew open.
The darkness barely changed. She blinked to make sure she’d opened her eyes. She was awake.
She was no longer on the back seat of a car as she’d recalled, she was in the boot. Her face pushed towards the carpet and she could smell . . . oil and something else. Something dark and metallic, like it was rusting. But it was a crude scent.
This was how he’d transferred the bodies.
Claudia tried to move, to find a more comfortable position, but she couldn’t. Her wrists were tied. She twisted her neck. Tried to ease the discomfort from the position someone had dumped her in. But there was little room for manoeuvre.
She flexed her wrists. Tried to see how much give was in the ties, but they were tight.
Behind her was a huge blanket. Rough against her bare arms. She shuddered as she thought about why he’d want a blanket in the boot. To transfer a body?
Fear was eating her up. Slowly, second by second, it crawled onto her skin. Owning her.
She shook her head as much as she could. She wouldn’t allow this to happen. No matter how things looked now, she would not be his next victim.
The team would have been alerted. The whole force would be looking for her, in fact. They’d not rest until they found her. Until then, Claudia had to rely on her own wits to keep herself safe. To prevent this man from fulfilling the act he had her in here for. That was her one job. To stay alive until the cavalry came.
CHAPTER 1
Seven weeks earlier
Well, that was what he called a bad day.
He let himself into his apartment, brown cardboard box — the only sign he’d even been in the relationship — clasped in his hands. Struggling to juggle the box, he bent to retrieve the post from the floor and then slammed the door behind him.
After two years together Dani had decided they were no longer working as a couple.
This was news to him.
As far as he was concerned they were doing brilliantly. They both had their own homes but had progressed to having a toothbrush and a few clothes stored at the other’s.
Today Dani had packed those clothes and that toothbrush into a box and handed it to him, telling him that she wasn’t ready to move onto the next stage and that to her their relationship wasn’t working.
She told him her biological clock was ticking and the louder it got the more she’d had to assess her life and her life decisions. This was not about him but about her, and her biology. She hoped he understood.
He’d apologised to her. He’d actually apologised.
&nbs
p; She’d given a faint smile, clearly grateful he was making this so easy.
He was sorry she had to do this. Said he understood why it was happening.
Now he placed the box containing his few belongings and the post on the arm of his sofa and collapsed beside it.
Dani had been his world. What would he do with himself now? He supposed he had more time to focus on his real dream. He’d made some inroads recently but now he could really give of himself.
His art, real creative work, was what drove him. Creating art for the masses in the form of an exhibition to attend and view. His name in lights. Known to critics. Reviewed. Critiqued. His soul soared at the thought of what he could create with the time stretching out in front of him. He could pour his emotions at the loss of Dani into the sculptures he would design.
He looked at the box beside him and the small pile of letters beside the box. One was his past. The other could hold his future.
He’d applied to a few museums and some art galleries a couple of weeks ago, requesting to hold an exhibition in their premises. There had been some rejections, but that was to be expected within the creative arts field. You didn’t get anywhere without rejections under your belt. If you weren’t rejected you couldn’t call yourself a real artist. But he was expecting to hear from the rest and at least one would accept him and that would be his starting gun. You only needed one to get going.
Excitement fluttered in his stomach like a butterfly cornered in a window as he stared at the mail.
He picked them up.
Five in total.
The first was a gas bill. The second an offer of a credit card.
The third one was the important one, in a plain white envelope without a window. He tore it open and read down the single typed sheet, a cold knot curling in the pit of his stomach.
How could they?
His fist clenched. The paper crunching in his fingers.
How could they?
He tried to breathe. There were two more envelopes in his other hand. This meant there was still a chance he could hold an exhibition and show the world, the art critics, his work.
The first of the two envelopes went straight on the floor with the scrunched-up rejection. It was a brown envelope with a clear window. Not what he was interested in. The final one was the all-important one.
He tore it open.
His world ended.
The paper fluttered to the floor with the rest. Scattered around him like large pieces of confetti.
Time slowed. His mind struggled to grasp what had happened. How could they all reject him like this? He was good. Dani had told him how good his work was.
Had she lied to him?
Was that all she was, a liar? His fury at her built up like the rejections on the floor at his feet.
She’d rejected him and he’d apologised for it. Him. He’d apologised instead of her. He certainly wouldn’t apologise for these rejections around him. He would do what Dani had said and assess his own life and his decisions and that meant his choices in pleading for space to show his art.
He would turn this around on them and show them he didn’t need them. The world would be his stage. There were plenty of spaces that could host an exhibit. Bring it to life and have people awed.
What he needed was an installation that would have everyone talking. Something that no one had ever done before. Something real.
That was it. He needed for it to be real.
That would draw their attention.
An amalgamation of constructivism and assemblage sculpture with live and performance art. But it would have to have a standout twist for people to take notice of his creation because people rarely took notice of art. Too busy living their lives. Busy while at the same time doing nothing of note.
He had so much to say. And he had the creativity with which to say it.
With a little extra thought he could come up with the perfect installation idea and the twist that would make the masses take notice.
He looked down at the envelope still in his hand and at the logo printed on it. The inspired design that represented the organisation. It was beautiful and yet simple.
That was what he could do.
Create invitations to the installations. Make them part of the exhibit somehow.
He’d need to think this through. Brainstorm ideas for the installation and in turn how he’d create invitations that linked to them creatively and who he would send them to.
It would need to have critics talking.
No one would have done what he was imagining. Pieces set in different locations. He would set the art world on fire. You couldn’t reject him this way, he was somebody worth talking about. And soon everyone would be talking about him.
CHAPTER 2
The pile of envelopes landed on DI Claudia Nunn’s desk with a thunk. Claudia thanked the front counter staff member who had traipsed through the building to bring the mail and selected the top envelope.
Claudia was bored.
It wasn’t something you said within the police. The service was overstretched at all times. And yet here she was, sitting in her office, waiting for a job to fall into her lap.
One month ago, after a tough case, Claudia’s supervisors had created a new task force and asked her to lead it. Complex Crimes. A unit designed to pick up investigations that were not so run-of-the-mill, that were more difficult in nature. She had chosen the staff she wanted on her team, other than the detective sergeant. He had, like her, been allocated by the top brass, Detective Chief Inspector Maddison Sharpe and Detective Superintendent Connelly. The DS in question was Dominic Harrison. A good cop on every level, but Claudia’s problem with the choice was Dominic being her father. It was a position neither of them wanted to be in. Her supervising her father and him taking direction from his only child.
Particularly in the aftermath of his wife’s death.
Ruth Harrison, Claudia’s step-mother and one of her closest friends, had died at the hands of the Sheffield Strangler, Samuel Tyler, the serial killer whose case Claudia had closed and which had landed her this role.
She thought of Ruth and missed her as deeply in this moment as at the time she’d first heard of her loss.
Her father was throwing himself into his work, but that was where they had a problem. Since they’d locked up Tyler for the murder of Ruth and the other women, no such complex jobs had come through their door. Tyler was currently on remand awaiting trial and they were sitting twiddling their thumbs. They supported other teams on homicides where they could, as they waited for something they could get their teeth into and use their so-called expertise on.
Claudia looked down at the sheets of paper in her hand that she’d pulled from the envelope. The minutes of a multi-agency meeting run by Social Care for one of the children affected by the murder of his mother. The ripples of a case that continued to flow. All the women who had been murdered had children, children whose lives that would never be the same again.
Claudia skimmed the document and put it in the internal mailing system for the officer pulling the Tyler case together for court. As Ruth was family the task had been given to another officer. Yes, she’d stepped in and helped when they’d needed it, but it was temporary and for a specific area. Now another SIO was wrapping it up.
She picked up the second envelope. It was a little damp. Tiny splodges where rain had hit it patterned the paper. The day had been dry when Claudia arrived at work that June morning, but it looked as though there had been a shower in the meantime. Turning to look out the window behind her, Claudia saw an overcast day, but no rain. She hoped it held off as she didn’t carry an umbrella around with her in the summer months. Though she probably should, being in Sheffield.
The sheet of paper within the envelope slid out easily. It was A4 in size, good quality thickness and folded in half, so Claudia had no idea what it was or who it was from yet.
She unfolded the sheet and stared down at a drawing. Mesmerised. Claudia had
never seen such an intricate drawing before. Not that she was an art critic or anything. But the detail in this image was as beautiful as it was horrific.
Horrific because the image depicted what looked like a crime scene.
Claudia idly wondered who would send her this drawing. It belonged in some macabre display, it was that good.
In the middle of what looked to be a rundown industrial building was a bed. On the bed lay a man, on his front. Arms stretched out above him, tied with rope to the bars of the bedhead. He was naked. A sheet tangled around his feet. And in the middle of his back, dug in deep, was an elaborate-looking blade.
The man’s neck was twisted sideways so a slice of his face was visible. As with the rest of the picture, the detail was painstaking. A look of sheer horror — or was that agony — marked his features.
Taut arm muscles pulled at the binds that tied them to the bed.
There was a knock, and Claudia’s second DS, Russell Kane, poked his head around the door. Claudia dragged her eyes away from the paper in her hands and looked up.
‘DI Simpson called and asked if you had anyone available to help out for a few days on a murder she’s running. A nightclub fight gone wrong.’
Claudia tried to pull her thoughts from the fear niggling at the back of her head as she’d immersed herself in the drawing. She shook herself and returned to the reality of her job. ‘Of course. Select a couple and tell them they’ll return as soon as we need them.’
Russ rolled his eyes. Like Claudia, he wondered at the sense of the new task force but kept his thoughts to himself, and she was grateful to him for that. It had felt like a knee-jerk reaction to the murder of a serving police officer to her. But she was not one to fight the top brass. Especially not Sharpe or Connelly. They ruled Major Crimes with an iron fist and you stepped out of line at your own risk. Not that she and Russ disagreed with the Complex Crimes Task Force entirely. Not if they were going to be busy. But the last couple of weeks had shown them they really were only going to deal with difficult — be that investigatively tricky or publicly sensitive — cases. And neither of them were ones to sit around and wait. They wanted to work.