Guilty as Sin

by Croft, Adam

  Guilty as Sin

  Guilty as Sin

  Foreword

  Midpoint

  Guilty as Sin

  Adam Croft

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 Adam Croft

  Published by Circlehouse.

  Discover other titles by Adam Croft at Smashwords.com: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/adamcroft

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Acknowledgements

  I have many people to thank for their input and experience in helping me to ensure that this book was as entertaining and factually accurate as it can be.

  My thanks go to Russell Fairfield at O2-Telefonica for the information on mobile phone signal triangulation and locating missing persons. I am also grateful to NPIA Missing Persons Bureau for the statistics and information on missing persons.

  My fearless and thick-skinned editors, Jenni Bird and Sarah Ashcroft and must also be thanked massively for tearing an otherwise frighteningly amateurish book to shreds.

  Finally, a big thank you must go to Shaun Jackson, the winner of a recent charity auction to have a character in Guilty as Sin named after him. His contribution will have given a considerable benefit to many, not least Wendy Knight and Jack Culverhouse...

  Foreword

  Writing and publishing is a funny old game. When I first published Too Close For Comfort, I wasn't at all happy with the finished product. Expecting only a couple of hundred online sales at best, I became frustrated with the book after two-and-a-half years and published it regardless. It was just my luck, then, that the book would go on to sell over 60,000 copies within two months and top the worldwide Amazon and iBooks best-seller charts. Of course, I'm not complaining.

  Too Close For Comfort's extraordinary success still amazes me. It's no secret that I'm not keen on the book itself, but I'm delighted that so many people have been. The number of lovely emails (and financial donations!) received has been surprising yet touching. In Guilty as Sin, I can promise you a book with which I am very happy. Well, mostly happy, anyway. The word 'perfect' doesn't exist to a writer.

  Since Too Close For Comfort was published, my life has, yet again, seen some big changes. My long-suffering girlfriend of five years agreed to marry me and we are currently in the process of moving house. I am far happier to have convinced myself to sit down and write this book within a much shorter period of time (two-and-a-half months, as opposed to years) as I feel it has a much improved flow. Besides, I don't otherwise know where I would have found the time.

  For Joanne.

  1

  It was the last day of Danielle Levy's life.

  As she sauntered around the corner into Heathcote Road on her way back from a hard half-day's work at sixth-form college, she had no idea of what lay in front of her.

  It had been Maths today. It was always bloody Maths. Despite the fact that she had chosen to study Drama and English Literature as her two main A-levels, her mother had insisted that she choose at least one 'proper' subject. She'd thrown in Classics as her fourth option. Another protest, but she was actually quite enjoying it. She hated Maths, though.

  Woodlands was all right, she supposed. It wasn't an all-purpose college like the one she had planned to attend before her family moved to Mildenheath, but it was all right. The sixth-form college was somewhat amalgamated with the upper school. The same teachers, the same classrooms. The same snotty-nosed little brats who didn't know what it meant to be grown up.

  Every day when she turned the corner into Heathcote Road, her heart sank a little. True enough, it was the road she lived on, but her house was a good seven hundred yards further along the road. She had lived at 101 Heathcote Road only for a couple of months, but she had already become attached to the house. Passing the parade of shops, walking up the hill and exiting the right-hand bend to see her house standing proud in the summer sunshine always made her feel warm and glorious. It was home.

  Darren's van was park jauntily on the cracked concrete driveway as she skirted around the edge of the lawn towards the front door. Her step-father tended to finish work early on Fridays. Not that he didn't finish early on every other day. She guessed there wasn't much call for carpet fitters after 2pm on a weekday.

  Turning her key in the lock and crunching the bottom of the door over the pile of letters which lay in wait on the doormat, she heaved her rucksack against the wine rack, picked up the post and made her way towards the kitchen. The door had been locked, and it was clear to Danielle that she was alone in the house. It was then that she heard the familiar creaking of the back door.

  2

  It was dark. It was the middle of the day, but it was dark. The noise of the traffic outside had disappeared, the birds had stopped singing. Her chest had stopped heaving.

  He stood over her naked, quivering body as the last lights of consciousness began to to ebb away from her battered shell. The odd low murmur escaped from her bruised and bloodied lips as the the blood in her veins thickened and resisted its final circuit. Her eyes rolled in her head as he smirked, before jerking his head back and propelling a globule of spittle at her, watching it hit her eyeball and cascade down her lacerated cheek.

  She would be no bother any more. She was too close to the truth, far too close. Her idle threats had pushed him over the line. He felt joyous, powerful at the act that he had committed. He felt good.

  The sirens that bellowed and swirled as they raced past served only to reinforce his feeling that he was above the law. He was the law.

  He stepped backwards over the concrete floor and felt for the wooden handle. Jerking his hand upwards, he lifted the cast-iron sledgehammer from the floor with a deep scraping on the rough concrete below. With a wry smile, he brought it up above his head and brought it crashing down on her skull.

  3

  DS Wendy Knight stood slouched against the wall of the lift as it rose towards the third floor. Four weeks off work and she was knackered within a further two. 'If you rest, you rust', she remembered an old American actress once saying. Wendy certainly felt rusted up right now.

  The juddering and shunting of the lift upon reaching the third floor almost knocked Wendy to her knees. As if simply confirming the arrival at the third floor for those who were still conscious, the lift bell pinged before the doors slid open and the familiar site of Mildenheath CID greeted her. Another Monday morning.

  Making her way towards her desk, she noticed that once again it had been used as a dumping ground for empty coffee cups and sandwich wrappers. One weekend off duty and your desk became a landfill site. The joys of life in Mildenheath CID. Casually stuck to the uppermost coffee cup was a gleaming yellow post-it note adorned with DCI Jack Culverhouse's distinctive handwriting.

  Briefing – mispers – 9am

  Short and sweet – that was Culverhouse's style. No wasted energy, no wasted time. Wendy smiled inside at the second word. It was a while since they'd had a missing persons case to deal with. Almost 200,000 people were reported missing in the UK every year, with three quarters of people being found within 48 hours and less than one percent of missing people being found dead. That was still a lot of people, but the odds on dealing with a dead body were significantly lower than in a murder case, where you were assured of dealing with the grim and grisly process of an horrific death.

  Death terrified
Wendy. It was an occupational hazard, but one she would rather avoid. She was petrified of her own death and truly hated having to deal with death as part of her job. Death could wait, though. She had other matters of life on her mind.

  Deciding against having a coffee due to a lack of cups (she knew where they had all got to), Wendy picked up her Moleskine notebook and rounded the corner towards the briefing room, where she found the room scattered with her colleagues, all looking far more refreshed than she felt on this Monday morning. Luke Baxter, newly promoted Detective Sergeant, was sat in the front row against the window, sharing a joke with Culverhouse. Baxter's fast-tracked promotion still rankled Wendy. She knew the golden boy of Mildenheath CID was far less than he was cracked up to be. Unfortunately, Culverhouse saw things very differently.

  With a cough, Culverhouse rose and stepped slowly and purposefully in front of the information board as he waited for silence.

  “Right. A nice little missing persons enquiry to kick us off this morning. Hopefully we can have the bird found by lunchtime and crack open a few tinnies.” Culverhouse's comment was met with muted laughter from the men and rolling eyes from the women. He jabbed a finger at the blown-up photograph stuck to the information board. It showed a happy, smiling young woman posing in front of a Christmas tree in a delightfully bad Christmas jumper. Wendy had noticed the growing trend in un-trendy clothing and admired the irony which had permeated fashion in recent years.

  “Danielle Levy, aged seventeen. She was last seen attending sixth-form lessons at Woodlands on Friday lunchtime. Her mother and step-father said she didn't return home that afternoon, as expected. She often went into town with friends during the afternoon when she didn't have any lessons, but her parents got worried when she hadn't returned home that evening. She was officially reported missing late last night.”

  Wendy nodded slowly as she jotted down the relevant notes in her notebook. A fairly routine case – seventeen-year-old girls went missing all the time and were by far the most likely people to do so. She knew, however, that once the first couple of days had passed, the chances of finding a missing girl alive would slowly crumble.

  “DS Wing, I want you to get on to her mobile phone company and get some details on her most recent location. Baxter – I want you to man the phones at this end and get on to the local media and get some publicity on this. Frank – you and Debbie can start conducting door-to-door enquiries. See if the neighbours have seen her or if there's been any sign of a disturbance or argument recently. Knight – you're coming with me to speak to the parents.”

  Wendy actually quite enjoyed being at Culverhouse's side when he carried out interviews and spoke with families. She saw herself as the yin to his yang; the good cop to his bad cop, and she was sure he realised this and appreciated it. Below the appreciation, though, was the realisation that as every minute – every second –ticked by, the likelihood of finding Danielle Levy alive rapidly diminished.

  4

  Danielle Levy's house was situated a mile and a half south of the police station in Mildenheath, a tired-looking lamp-post the only eyesore on a row of houses sporting downstairs bay windows and oak trees to the front and rear. The lawn was neatly tended to – something Wendy would not have noticed before she had her own, but which she now appreciated.

  Culverhouse pressed the door-bell, shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. Wendy raised an eyebrow in warning that Culverhouse exercise some tact. The man who opened the door looked as though he was in his mid-thirties, small flecks of grey hairs in his closely-cropped black cut belied his true age.

  “Mr Levy?”

  “Parker. Darren Parker. Danielle's mum and I aren't married. You must be the two detectives. Please, come in.”

  The white, glass-paned front door led into an open hall-way. The staircase rose up the left-hand wall away from the door and the kitchen door was open to the far end of the hall. Darren Parker led Wendy and Culverhouse to the right-hand door and into the living room. Wendy took a seat by the bay window, Culverhouse preferring to stride around the living room inspecting ornaments and greetings cards as he began to speak to Darren.

  “Someone had a birthday?”

  “Danielle. Last month, actually, but we tend to keep the cards up until we get sick of the sight of them. Not much else to look forward to apart from Christmases and birthdays these days, is there?” Culverhouse emitted a non-committal murmur. “'From your mum and step-dad', it says. I thought you weren't married?”

  “We're not, but Danielle always calls me her step-father, and Miriam and I are as good as married anyway, so what's in a name?”

  Wendy smiled. It had been a long time since she had heard the words of a truly caring father. “So, when did you last see Danielle?”

  “In the morning before she went to school. Only briefly – we said good morning at the top of the stairs as I went to work.”

  “You're a carpet fitter – is that your van?”

  “That's the one. Got my own business.”

  “I see. And was there any sign that Danielle had been home at all?”

  “Uh, her rucksack was in the hall, so she must have been home. I think she said she had lessons up until lunchtime, though. I got back from work around one o'clock and her rucksack wasn't there then. I went out to walk the dog over Mildenheath Common for an hour or two and when I got back it was there. Odd thing is, her shoes weren't, so I can only imagine she dropped her bag off and went out somewhere.”

  “Can you think of anywhere she might have gone? A friend's house?”

  “We've tried all those. Danielle was always very streetwise and told us all her friends' names and phone numbers. We've spent the last day or two phoning round. We've even been up to the hospital to see if any unknown people have been admitted. We've just drawn an absolute blank. In retrospect, we probably should have phoned the police earlier, but we were so sure she had just gone into town or round to a friend's house. I guess … you never think it's going to happen to you.”

  “I'm sure she'll be found safe and sound, Mr Parker.” Deep inside, she knew that the chances of this were fast diminishing. “Are you sure that you and Mrs Levy don't know of anywhere else Danielle might have gone to?”

  “I'm pretty sure, yes. We've gone through the list a hundred times. Miriam's out now, walking the dogs on the Common in some sort of vain hope of finding something.”

  “You can leave the searching to us, Mr Parker. I'm sure we'll find her soon. Do you mind if we have a quick look around her bedroom? Standard practice for a missing person.”

  “Yes, of course. It's the first room on the right.”

  Wendy and Culverhouse ascended the stairs and passed the bathroom door at the top before opening the door into Danielle's room. The door creaked slightly as it opened, revealing a room which looked remarkably like any other seventeen-year-old girl's room. It had the air of youth and innocence, but without the mess and untidiness of the early adolescent. The posters of pop stars and male idols were gone, replaced with newspaper cuttings of drama productions and photographs of shows she had appeared in. Wendy recognised Danielle in a few of the photographs. She looked happy, carefree.

  Her wardrobe contained the usual fare for a seventeen-year-old girl: jeans, short skirts, party dresses and low-cut tops along with an assortment of coats, shoes and handbags. Danielle Levy was clearly a girl who cared about her appearance; an effort which her photographs showed to be every bit a success. Nothing seemed to be missing or out of place.

  The stairs creaking underfoot on his descent, Culverhouse began to ask the question before he was even visible to Darren Parker.

  “Do you know whether Danielle had a boyfriend at all?”

  “Not as far as I know, Inspector. She was quite open with us as her parents, but you know what young girls are like – I don't imagine for one minute she always told us everything.”

  “Do you think her friends might have a better idea?”

  “Quite possibly. I should imagine
she'd have told at least one of them if she was involved with someone. I did ask them all when we phoned around – if any of them knew of a boyfriend or someone she might have gone to see.”

  “And?”

  “No-one knew of anyone. It's as if she's just vanished into thin air.”

  “And there were no signs of a break-in at all?”

  “No, but then again... Oh, this is going to sound so stupid.”

  “Go on, Mr Parker.”

  “The back door was unlocked. We usually lock it, and I know it was locked when I left for work this morning as I hadn't unlocked it from last night. It'd be difficult for someone to get in that way, but not entirely impossible.”

  5

  Wendy sat lifeless at her desk, nursing an increasingly-colder mug of coffee. Her lips were pursed, blowing away steam which no longer existed.

  “You trying to make an ice lolly?” DS Steve Wing said.

  “Hmmm? Oh, sorry. Lost in thought.”

  “I'd noticed. You've been blowing on that coffee for the past twenty minutes. Not like your usual asbestos-tongued self.”

  “Yeah, just got a lot of stuff on my mind at the moment. Long days and short nights, you know how it is.”

  “I don't think any of us really know how it is, Wendy. You should probably have taken longer off work, no matter what Culverhouse says.”

  “It wasn't down to Culverhouse, it was down to me. As he said, he would have had me in the next day if he could.”

  “True. Two weeks is maternity leave to him.” Wendy found herself no longer wanting to drink her mug of coffee. “Anyway, we've got an afternoon briefing at half-past. More news on the mobile phone records and door-to-door enquiries on the Danielle Levy case.”