Blood Runs Cold_A completely unputdownable mystery and suspense thriller

by Dylan Young

  ‘Did he tell you about any other Black Squid victims?’ Anna asked.

  Shaw nodded.

  ‘So why did you choose here?’

  Shaw smiled. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw Khosa flinch.

  ‘It’s beautiful here. It’s a long way from Whitmarsh prison. It’s a summer’s evening.’ He gave her one of his slow blinks. She’d seen that before. Sometimes it was a warning; other times she’d read it as a mark of a patient, canted humour.

  ‘None of those are the real reasons though, are they?’

  Shaw tilted his head. ‘I want you to see that I can be helpful, Anna. I get the feeling you still don’t trust me. Even after my help with that child-murdering bastard, Starkey.’

  He was absolutely correct on that score. She didn’t trust him. Not fully. She glanced at the armed policeman cradling his automatic weapon. He returned a wary smile of confirmation. Next to the monument, Sinbad was covering the ground quickly, tail up, nose down.

  Anna considered Shaw’s statement. Trust was an odd word to use, but he’d used it before. He’d shown no remorse for his crimes and had cultivated their relationship because he wanted her to trust him. At least when it came to revealing his ‘treasures’. Yet she still wasn’t sure exactly why. Outside the confines of the prison, he was more open, more willing to talk to her. And he wanted her to know that. Apart from Tanya Cromer, whom, she was now convinced, he tried to save, the ‘buried treasure’ Shaw was revealing to them was linked to Black Squid. All victims in some shape or form of the nameless, faceless murderous puppeteer who tricked and manipulated his victims into horrible deaths, aided and abetted by Krastev.

  Shaw’s motivation was vendetta-fuelled and, she suspected, had a lot more mileage left.

  Sinbad had covered a 20-metre-square area when he suddenly started pawing at the ground. He ran from left to right but came back to a spot adjacent to a fence bordering a residential property and barked. His handler came over and threw him a ball. His reward for finding the treasure. Anna’d read that a cadaver dog could find a human tooth buried 12 feet under the earth.

  The GPR team came in with their mobile detector. Ten minutes later, Anna got the nod to say they’d found something.

  Anna spoke to a DI Becker from Sussex Police, a rangy murder squad veteran with cheekbones pocked from old acne scars. This was his case now. She brought him over to speak to Shaw, who, once the presence of a body was confirmed, had been taken back to the transport vehicle where he stood, flanked by the uniforms.

  Becker asked, ‘DI Gwynne tells me you know who did this?’

  Shaw, eyes down, looked slowly up into Becker’s face. ‘It’s a drainage ditch. The man who buried the boy knew they were doing ground works. He didn’t even need to dig the hole himself.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot,’ Becker said.

  Shaw gave him one of his slow blinks. Anna was suddenly glad of the handcuffs and the armed escort.

  ‘I’ve given the details to Inspector Gwynne,’ Shaw said.

  ‘Would you be prepared to give us a statement?’

  ‘Only to Inspector Gwynne.’

  Becker sighed and turned to Anna. ‘Looks like we’ll both be visiting Hector at his, then.’

  ‘No,’ Shaw said. ‘Don’t bother. I will only speak to her. You ask me through her. But she will be busy. Inspector Gwynne is going to have her own case to investigate.’

  Both police officers exchanged glances before turning to Shaw.

  ‘What do you mean, Hector?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I think it’s time I showed you one closer to home. Krastev was reluctant to tell me about it. He needed a lot of, how should I put it, persuading. And there’s something about it that smells bad. He kept saying ‘chudovishtna kushta’. I had to look it up. It means monster house.’

  ‘That doesn’t help.’

  ‘No?’ Shaw tilted his head. ‘Somewhere you keep the mad and the very, very bad, I’d guess.’ He breathed in slowly through his nose, eyes shut. Anna hoped he was taking in the country air, but she suspected it was mainly her that he was attempting to ingest.

  His veiled references were beginning to irritate her. He’d already dragged her off to an abandoned asylum where Krastev had been buried. And a small but cynical part of her still wondered if this was merely some kind of sick and elaborate game he was playing.

  The monster house.

  Had Krastev really said that or was this another bigoted reference to the mentally ill from Shaw himself? His smugness was beginning to annoy her.

  ‘What if I said no, Hector. What if I said I wasn’t interested in any more liaisons. Either tell me now what you know or go back to your cell and rot.’

  The silence that followed seemed to have its own heartbeat. Finally, Shaw looked up and spoke, his tone even and soft.

  ‘Now why would you want to take that attitude, Inspector? I thought we had an understanding.’

  ‘The only thing I understand is that you’re feeding us tidbits instead of letting us have the whole takeaway.’

  ‘Quid Pro Quo, Anna.’

  ‘Days out, you mean?’ Anna shook her head. ‘Come on Hector.’

  ‘I’m giving you a chance to progress your career, Anna. You should be grateful.’

  ‘Grateful.’ Anna nodded. ‘I see. Well, dealing with the aftermath of another body should see us through another few months, so I’ll be tied up for a while.’

  ‘Time is not on my side, you know that.’

  She paused then, assimilating his words. It was a strange thing to say. Shaw was only in his fifties. ‘I’m not going to try and understand what that means. But I’ve got lots of time. So how about I find someone else to walk in Abbie’s shoes for you instead of me.’ She knew she was goading. Any mention of Abbie Shaw was like lighting blue touchpaper.

  ‘You aren’t Abbie and I would be grateful if you did not use her name in an attempt at scoring points off me.’

  ‘But isn’t that exactly what you’re trying to do every single time you take us out to a body? I’m sure she’d be very proud.’

  Becker, who’d watched the exchange, said, ‘And there is a lot to be proud of, isn’t there, Hector?’

  Shaw had been cooperation epitomised. Quiet, wary almost. That went some way to explain why they were all so unprepared for what happened next. Shaw let his eyes drop and, in one lunge, charged at Becker. The detective was caught totally off balance. He fell. Shaw, hands cuffed behind him, fell too. But there was nothing accidental about the way he collapsed on top of Becker, his face reaching up towards the detective’s throat. If it hadn’t been for the escort’s quick reactions, Anna had no doubt that Shaw would have bitten. She’d seen him bite before. Seen a trainee psychiatrist lose an ear in the process.

  They bundled Shaw into the cage in the rear of the van. Once he was up he offered very little resistance. All he did in the time it took to put him in and slam the doors shut was glare at Anna. And in that look there was warning.

  They drove Shaw away. Becker, though unharmed, looked very shaken as he patted dirt from his suit. Anna took the opportunity to apologise again.

  ‘Don’t,’ Becker said. ‘You should never try and make pets of wild animals, my old gran used to say. But it’s a result, isn’t it? The body I mean. What I still don’t get is why Shaw’s being so cooperative after all these years.’

  ‘Who knows,’ Khosa said.

  Anna kept her head down, massaging the stresses of the day out of her neck with one hand. It hid her face and, she hoped, the guilty expression she wore. She had her own theories but they weren’t for sharing here.

  She studied her colleagues. Becker had been in the game a long time, but, like most other police officers she knew, had never come across something like Shaw before. Khosa was still sharp and keen, but Anna noticed how she’d kept her distance. She wouldn’t blame her for that because it was a shared wariness. The type of fascination you had with a caged animal that, though it was confined, instinct told you no
t to get too close to.

  They talked through the case. Jurisdiction here devolved to Sussex, but Krastev was a link not be ignored and Anna had already briefed them about Shaw’s daughter and her tragic suicide.

  ‘What else do you think he has to show you, Anna? And where?’ Becker asked. If the bodies Shaw had revealed so far were anything to go by, they could be spread far and wide.

  Anna found no answer to give.

  * * *

  The journey home seemed endless and Anna, choosing to drive, spent most of it pondering Becker’s questions. The ones she had declined to answer. She thought about the cadaver dog, Sinbad. Clever, loyal, accepting and no bloody small talk. Everything she wanted in a companion.

  The sun was a dangerously brilliant orb in her line of sight as she headed directly west in the car with Khosa busy texting her brother beside her. The DC had been subdued since witnessing Shaw’s violent reaction, but all it had done was reinforce her determination to keep as far away from the man as possible. Both Khosa and Holder had been on a high for the last few days. Spanish police had picked up Morton and they’d both gone to the airport for the handover a couple of days ago.

  They’d brought her back a mug with ‘World’s Best Boss’ written on it.

  Hawley would be waiting for Anna at the end of her journey that evening. She comforted herself with the thought as she drove, a wry smile on her face, occasionally lowering the window and letting the breeze wash away the sticky smell of coffee and Khosa’s mints steeped in her nose.

  But it failed to blow away the thoughts of Shaw that stubbornly kept reasserting themselves.

  He’d promised to show her something else and had shown no inclination, now that he had Anna involved, to let her go. His preoccupation with her had everything to do with his belief that he’d found in her an instrument of justice for the crimes perpetrated against him, and his own. It was not a very comfortable feeling. But the Black Squid and the men who persisted in peddling it were a real phenomenon.

  She thought about Shaw festering in his prison cell for all those years, ruminating on those he had been unable to impart his ‘justice’ upon. He had waited, a patient hunter, for the right prey to enter his domain before reaching out and dragging her into his psychological lair. But should she consider herself the prey here? She suspected Shaw considered her an ally and their relationship a symbiotic one. Despite the heat, Anna suddenly shivered, her heart thumping. That was an equally uncomfortable thought.

  Shaw’s conversations were as seductive as they were terrifying. She had turned to him twice in order to try and understand the way killers thought and acted. She’d caught Willis first and then Starkey, and Shaw’s dispassionate appraisal provided vital insight in both cases.

  Shipwright, her old mentor, would have created merry hell had he known. And Anna knew the game she was playing was a dangerous one. But Shaw had somehow managed to align his agenda with hers and she could not, in all consciousness, step away from the lion’s cage.

  To do so meant letting bodies lie in shallow graves undiscovered, allowing relatives to hope where there was none, and turning away from the chance to hunt monsters.

  * * *

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  A Letter from Dylan

  Once again, a huge thank you for choosing to read Blood Runs Cold. If you enjoyed it, and want to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, please sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

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  In the next book, the ‘buried treasure’ Shaw reveals to Anna is right on her doorstep. Another body, another cold case, another Black Squid victim, or is it?

  Anna must disentangle the lies and horrifying secrets from a murky past to reveal the truth before more innocents fall prey. But Hector Shaw has ideas of his own…

  I hope you loved Blood Runs Cold, and if you did I would be very grateful if you could write a review. I’d love to hear what you think, and it makes such a difference helping new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.

  I love hearing from my readers – you can get in touch on my Facebook page, through Twitter, Goodreads or my website.

  Thanks,

  Dylan

  www.dylanyoungauthor.com

  Also by Dylan Young

  Detective Anna Gwynne Crime Series:

  The Silent Girls

  Blood Runs Cold

  The Silent Girls

  Detective Anna Gwynne Crime Series Book 1

  Get it here!

  * * *

  ‘Ambulance and police. Something’s happened. I don’t know what. But my little girl–’ A sob choked off the sentence. ‘It’s my daughter...’

  When beautiful young Nia Hopkins goes missing from her family’s farm on the icy outskirts of the Forest of Dean, her blood soaking the floor, the Gloucestershire police are convinced she’s been taken by the killer who stabbed to death Emily Risman eighteen years ago. They’re desperate to finally have the evidence to put him away. To save another girl before it’s too late.

  * * *

  But Detective Anna Gwynne thinks the press frenzy is making them obsess over the wrong man. He doesn’t fit the profile she’s been trained to see. This killer is sadistic. The suspect isn’t capable of that kind of crime.

  And when Anna finds a link to other cold cases, she realises the killer is manipulating the police to cover up other unspeakable crimes.

  * * *

  With no one listening, Anna knows she’s the only one who can hunt down this serial killer. But if she goes out alone, is she putting her own life in danger?

  * * *

  An absolutely page-turning thriller that will have you hooked. If you love Val McDermid, Angela Marsons and Robert Dugoni, you won’t be able to put down The Silent Girls.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to all the team at Bookouture who do so much to make stories into novels. Special mention goes to Jennifer Hunt and DeAndra Lupu for their always constructive comments and guidance. I am also grateful to Rebecca Bradley and Steve Slater for their generous help with the technical side of modern policing.

  Published by Bookouture

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  An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

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  www.bookouture.com

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  Copyright © Dylan Young 2018

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  Dylan Young has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain 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.

  ISBN: 978-1-78681-402-9

 

 

 
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