My new editor, Sam Eades for her boundless energy, inspirational ideas and editorial nous. She has taken a chance on Bev and has welcomed me into the Orion family with open arms, for which I’m very thankful. I hope Tightrope marks the start of a long and happy adventure for us. Thanks also to her maternity cover (and my old editor!!), Phoebe Morgan, to the spiffing rights team who have sold Tightrope internationally, to Alainna Hadjigeorgiou in PR and Jessica Tackie in marketing. I’ll say thanks to actor, Imogen Church for her performance of the audiobook, too, though I haven’t yet heard it. I just KNOW it will be ace!
Fellow author and buddy, Neil White, for his legal advice. If there are any blundering legal errors in this book, they are solely down to me, either through authorial choice or sheer stupidity.
The folks at BBC Radio Manchester, particularly the fab Phil Trow, who has me chatting shit on his drive-time show so very regularly and lovely Becky Want, who is a top lady and brilliantly supportive of my writing.
My friends, Tammy Cohen, Sarah Stephens-Smith, Louise Voss, Steph Broadribb and Paulette Geelan for putting up with me when I’m down South and for moral support generally.
The various book clubs, who support my two existing series, and the many bloggers who give so generously of their time to read and review my stories. This bedrock of support is invaluable and much appreciated.
Finally, thanks to my amazing readers who buy my books, read, enjoy them and then tell all their friends. They are such an engaged bunch and without them, I wouldn’t have a career. I hope you’ll all love reading about Bev and Doc as much as I have enjoyed writing their story.
Enjoyed Tightrope?
Read on for an exclusive extract of Marnie Riches’ new book, Backlash.
PROLOGUE
Mihal
It had been easy to escape while Terry wasn’t watching. The bullying chump was too greedy to pay anyone to guard them all overnight. Just as it had been up north, under the watchful eye of the boss-man bastard himself and his brute of a brother, the second-tier foreman depended on fear and withholding their IDs to make them stay put. It certainly worked on the Bulgarians. And if they were terrified of a paid lackey like Terry, who wasn’t even on site, those spineless bulangius wouldn’t dare challenge two Romanian real men like Mihal and Bogdan, – especially when they were loaded with Spice. With drug-fuelled super-strength, Bogdan loosened a thick sheet of ply to let Mihal through the building-site fencing. They were out.
A short walk took them into the heart of Holland Park, where the elegance of one of London’s most expensive neighbourhoods was tastefully spotlit in the early evening darkness and patrolled around the clock by infra-red, hi-res CCTV.
Mihal peered up at the three and four storey Victorian villas that surrounded them on either side of the tree-lined boulevard.
‘This is a waste of time,’ he said, eyeing the alarm boxes and CCTV orbs that festooned the eaves of every single house. He swayed like a whippy sapling in the October wind; made dizzy by the wealth on view and the pink clouds that scudded across black London skies. ‘You might as well try to break into a bank. We’d do better in a crappier area. Let’s head north and see what we find.’
But Bogdan grabbed a fistful of his filthy hoody and dragged him along the street. ‘You’ve got no faith in your older brother.’ He pointed at one of the houses where the paintwork was looking tired, even in the dark. ‘See? No CCTV,’ he said, grinning. ‘And look at the bell-box for the alarm. It’s ancient.’
‘Maybe it’s empty,’ Mihal said, shivering not just with the cold but because of the paranoia that was just nibbling away at the edges of his high. The four-storey house loomed above him. With no lights on or curtains drawn, the windows were like watchful black eyes. Perhaps the house knew his and Bogdan’s intentions. For a moment, even the sharp tangle of the tall holly hedging seemed enchanted, barring their entry with malicious intent. ‘I bet there’s nothing in there worth stealing. Let’s just go back and smoke some more. If Terry finds out we—’
Bogdan pushed him through the gate and into the deep shadows of the front garden. ‘Bet it’s old people,’ he whispered. ‘They’re lazy about security. Think they’re immune to break-ins.’
‘And they never have computers. What’s the point if there’s nothing we can sell in the pub?’
‘There’s bound to be food in the fridge at least. And jewellery, maybe.’
A security light came on, bright enough to make them both squint. That paranoia was taking a tight hold, now. Mihal imagined he could hear a dog barking inside the house. Perhaps the snap of a twig on the other side of the fence was the sound of a nosy neighbour watching their every move. ‘We should have just gone through the bins at the back of Sainsbury’s Local. I’ve got a bad feeling, Bogdan.’
In answer, his brother steered him round the back to some wood-framed French doors that, even in the dark, looked as though rot had taken hold after decades of neglect. He held his hand out, flexing his callused fingers.
‘Give me the crowbar, for god’s sake.’
Reluctantly, Mihal hoisted the tool from the waistband of his jeans. Snatched it from beyond Bogdan’s reach and started to jemmy the patio door himself.
The lock on the rotten door popped with only a little encouragement, swinging open in the breeze. The room was shrouded in blackness. Bogdan pushed him aside, barrelling into the gloom.
‘No dog,’ he said, crashing into something.
Mihal hung back, regretting leaving the predictability of the building site. He felt the cold sweat rolling down his back, soaking into the grimy waistband of jeans that had grown baggy through weight loss. Were the sirens in the distance coming for them? Was the slamming door beyond the tall hedge a neighbour coming to see if there was an intruder?
Suddenly a strobe of light illuminated the room. Mihal jumped, thinking it the owner emerging from the blackness, shining a torch onto Bogdan. But his brother had merely opened the door to a refrigerator, revealing a dated kitchen.
‘A ha!’ Bogdan said, lifting a plate from the bottom shelf of the fridge. ‘Chicken! Smells fresh, too.’ He wrenched off the leg and bit into it hungrily. ‘Come in and shut the damned door, you pussy!’
Salivating, his stomach growling, Mihal followed suit and ripped the second leg off the chicken.
‘Come on!’ Bogdan said, still chewing. ‘Let’s see what’s worth nicking.’
‘No. Let’s just take whatever food we can find and leg it,’ Mihal said, rifling fruitlessly through the vegetable drawer. He spied a block of cheese wrapped in cling film and rammed it into the pocket of his hoody. Belched. ‘I don’t feel right.’
But the creaking of floorboards beyond the kitchen said his older brother was already exploring. A light went on elsewhere, casting a yellow glow onto the faded splendour of the hallway. The sound of crockery smashing was deafening.
‘Jesus Christ, Bogdan!’ Mihal ran through to the living room to find him sweeping everything from an old mahogany sideboard onto the floor. ‘At least shut the curtains, you fool! Anyone can see us.’ He hastened to the window and yanked the dusty velvet curtains together, praying nobody had looked in whilst walking past.
‘Nice candelabra,’ Bogdan said, holding his tarnished silver trophy up to the cobweb-festooned chandelier. ‘Weighs a tonne. I reckon it’s solid.’
‘It’s too big. How the hell are you going to stick that inside your jacket? We need cash or small stuff that’s easy to sell quickly.’
‘The bedroom,’ Bogdan said, hurling the candelabra onto the green draylon sofa. ‘Rich old farts in places like this always have pearls and diamonds knocking about.’
With his heart thundering inside his chest and the blood rushing in his ears, as he climbed the stairs, Mihal could barely hear Bogdan’s wager that there would be a cash-tin in the wardrobe. His hands were so slick with sweat, they slid from the bannister. But Bogdan lurched on into the master bedroom at the front of the house, crashing over to the dressing table, y
anking drawers clean out of their housings. The bed was made neatly, covered by an old-fashioned handmade quilt – the kind their mother used to sew in the summer evenings in readiness for the harsh Romanian winters. Old soft furnishings and yellowing wallpaper made Mihal sneeze with gusto as though his body wanted to expel the musty stench of age, damp and neglect.
‘See? Look at the size of these gobstoppers! They’ll be worth a packet, I’m telling you.’ His brother lifted up a necklace, still clinging to a simple silver necklace tree planted on the dressing table – a flash of iridescence under the 100W glare of the centre light. But Bogdan’s movements were Spice-clumsy; the spittle bubbling up at the corners of his mouth in excitement. He grabbed the pearls and tried to yank them free. The thread snapped and Mihal watched as they bounced like cheap children’s beads across the thin carpet, rolling under the bed.
‘Idiot!’
They scrabbled on their hands and knees to retrieve their precious bounty, each blaming the other. But sirens and the squeal of tyres outside interrupted their squabbling.
Mihal darted to the window. Stole a glance through the edge of the net curtain at the street below: Two uniforms clambering out of two squad cars. Looking straight up at the window. Could they see him?
‘Shit! It’s the cops!’ He retreated hastily, tripping over Bogdan’s kneeling form. There was that rushing of blood in his ears again, so loud, he could barely hear himself speak. ‘Turn the damn light off!’
With cracking knees, Bogdan rose, his fists full of pearls. He stood on his tiptoes, craning his neck to see the ambush that awaited them below. Plunging the pearls into his pockets, he started to run. ‘Out the back. Before they come round.’
As Mihal followed him onto the landing, feeling he might vomit at any moment, he heard low voices in the kitchen. A man’s and a woman’s. No. Two men and a woman. Saw torchlight probing the darkest corners. The crackle of police radio. They were already inside.
Suddenly, a figure emerged into the hallway, clad in black and Hi-Viz green. A policewoman. She looked up and locked eyes immediately with Bogdan who stood like a statue on the galleried landing, peering down at her, transfixed.
‘Police! Raise your hands where I can see them!’ Her voice was confident and strong.
In an instant, she was flanked by the two men. They were thundering up the stairs, shouting.
Bogdan yelled something indistinct in their native Romanian, rooted to the spot as though the Spice had turned his feet to concrete. But Mihal was already running towards the staircase that led up; away from the cops.
‘Run, Bogdan!’ he cried.
Finally, his brother seemed to wake from his reverie. He pelted past Mihal on the stairs, almost sending him tumbling back down. The cops were almost upon them, now.
‘Hold it right there!’ the tallest of the policemen yelled. He reached out and grabbed Mihal’s hoodie. ‘It’s over, mate. Put your hands where I can see them. You have the right to remain silent …’
Mihal stumbled and fell chin first onto the next stair up. He tasted the metallic tang of blood immediately as his teeth cut into his bottom lip.
Above him, Bogdan climbed on. Where the hell was he going?
‘Give it up, bro!’ Mihal called after him, straining to see his brother’s ascent into the dark and the unknown. ‘There’s nowhere to go!’
But with the remaining cops only steps behind him, he watched in dismay as Bogdan yanked open the door to the attic. He heard footsteps across bare floorboards. The distinctive rattling sound of a sash window being hoisted open resounded through the house. Warnings, shouted from below by the police.
‘Don’t do anything stupid, Bogdan!’ Mihal yelled, struggling in vain to be free of his captor.
He was answered only by his brother’s guttural scream and the dull thud of a body hitting the patio outside.
About the Author
Marnie Riches grew up on a rough estate in north Manchester. Exchanging the spires of nearby Strangeways prison for those of Cambridge University, she gained a Masters in German & Dutch. She has been a punk, a trainee rock star, a pretend artist and professional fundraiser.
Her best-selling, award-winning George McKenzie crime thrillers, tackling the subject of trans-national trafficking, were inspired by her own time spent in The Netherlands. Dubbed the Martina Cole of the North, she is also the author of Born Bad and The Cover-Up – the critically acclaimed hit series about Manchester’s notorious gangland.
Tightrope is the start of a brand new series, set mainly in the famous footballer-belt of Hale, Cheshire, and introducing quirky northern PI, Bev Saunders who risks everything to fight the corner of her vulnerable client. A second Bev Saunders novel will follow in early 2020. So far, Marnie has sold an impressive 250,000 books and counting …
When she isn’t writing gritty, twisty crime-thrillers, Marnie also regularly appears on BBC Radio Manchester, commenting about social media trends and discussing the world of crime-fiction.
Also by Marnie Riches
The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die
The Girl Who Broke The Rules
The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows
The Girl Who Had No Fear
The Girl Who Got Revenge
Born Bad
The Cover Up
Backlash
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Trapeze Books,
an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment,
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Marnie Riches 2019
The moral right of Marnie Riches to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (mass market paperback) 978 1 4091 8194 1
ISBN (eBook) 978 1 4091 8195 8
www.orionbooks.co.uk
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