Truth or Dare: Pre-order the nail-biting new Helen Grace thriller now

by M. J. Arlidge

  Her accusation, angry and aggressive, hung in the air. No one spoke, no one moved, though whether this was out of embarrassment or fear was unclear. Helen was torn, wanting to lambast the team, to vent all her anger and anxiety on them – yet also painfully aware of the strain they were all under.

  ‘Look, just – just secure the site,’ she continued, moderating her tone. ‘And get to work. Let’s find out what happened here.’

  She marched off towards her bike, intent on getting to Martin Hill’s next of kin as quickly as possible. Helen was trying to look purposeful, in control, but knew she looked anything but. Every day of her working life, she tried hard to be a good leader, to be decisive, inspiring, calm. But recently she’d forgotten how, misplacing the strength and resolve she used to be famous for, in the process losing the battle for hearts and minds. Now, when the stakes couldn’t be any higher, when the eyes of her team, her superiors and the wider world were fixed upon her, she looked anxious, desperate and scared.

  Chapter 45

  He kept a beady eye on them, even as he punched in the numbers.

  The boys were in high spirits today, animated and boisterous, cavorting around in the garden, laughing and whooping. The sight pleased him – pleased him more than he could say – but he was still scared that they might suddenly burst into the house, which of course he could ill afford. This was a phone call he needed to make alone.

  Moving away from the window, Robert Downing returned his attention to the handset. He had entered the phone number, now all he needed do was hit ‘call’. Such a simple action, but still he hesitated. Was he really ready to do this? It would change his life, the boys’ life forever. Yet what choice did he have? To do anything else would be madness. He had to make the call.

  He stabbed the button and waited. He half hoped that it would go straight to voicemail, but now the call connected, a dull ringing filling his ear. Even now, he was tempted to stab ‘end’, to cut his losses and run, but courage prevailed and he hung on. One ring, two, three … would she never answer?

  And now her voicemail did click in, her strong, authoritative voice reaching out to him.

  ‘Hi, this is Helen Grace, please leave a message …’

  A moment’s silence, then a strong, decisive bleep. This was it, then, the last chance to back out, but instead he spoke swiftly, decisively: ‘Helen, hi, it’s Robert Downing. We need to talk.’

  Chapter 46

  ‘It started a week ago …’

  Lilah Hill was speaking slowly, as if it was an effort to join one word to the next. She was in shock, her body shaking, her voice quivering, desperately trying to make sense of the terrible tragedy that had suddenly befallen her.

  ‘Can you talk me through it? I need to know exactly what happened.’

  Helen sat opposite her, in the house she had shared with Martin Hill. Lilah had retreated there, having received the awful news at work, and Helen was keen to see if she could cast any light on this morning’s brutal murder. And no sooner had she pulled up outside the attractive terraced house, than she got the first inkling of what lay in store – the imprint of a recently painted swastika still just about visible on the exterior.

  ‘Well, about a week ago, we had a couple of odd calls. Silent calls, someone hanging up as soon as we answered the phone. We didn’t think much of it – maybe a wrong number or kids mucking about. Then three or four days ago – it was the tenth, I think – things got much worse. Martin picked up the phone and this woman just went for him, calling him every racist name under the sun, before hanging up.’

  Helen made a note of the date and replied: ‘Do you think those earlier calls were her too, plucking up the “courage” to abuse your husband, perhaps?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Lilah shrugged dully, still trying to process the events of the last few days.

  ‘How long did the call last?’

  ‘Thirty seconds, no more.’

  ‘And were there any more calls?’

  ‘No, for the next couple of days there was nothing. We thought maybe it was a one-off, just a nasty, stupid incident. But then we woke up two days ago to find … well, you saw what they did to the front of the house.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘They, he, whoever. We didn’t see them doing it.’

  ‘And none of the neighbours saw anything?’

  ‘I asked a few people but nobody had anything to say, so I gave up, didn’t want to keep going on about it.’

  Helen thought for a moment, then asked: ‘Just doubling back to the phone calls, can I ask whether the woman mentioned Martin by name? Did she know the identity of the person she was abusing?’

  Lilah nodded. ‘Yes, totally. She used his name, knew where he lived. Said someone like him shouldn’t be living on a nice, “white” street …’

  Helen’s heart sunk. Every murder was a tragedy, but some had more impact than others. A racially motivated murder was the last thing Southampton needed right now.

  ‘Did Martin recognize the voice?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Could it have been someone from the bar, someone involved in that altercation?’

  ‘Well, there were girls in the group, so it’s possible, I suppose …’ Lilah Hill petered out, as Helen’s suggestion landed. ‘Is that what you think this is?’ she continued nervously. ‘That whoever made the calls, graffitied the house, also … also did this to Martin?’ Lilah was staring straight at Helen, her anger fuelling some kind of composure now, even though tears still filled her eyes.

  ‘Honestly? I’ve no idea,’ Helen replied. ‘But it’s obviously a strong possibility. And it might explain why they seemed to target him specifically, rather than the pair of you. I take it Martin hasn’t had any other problems recently? Any other altercations or racially motivated incidents? On public transport? When he was out and about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He wasn’t conscious of any hostility towards him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or anyone following him home?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘And as regards the youths whom Martin confronted at the bar, had there been any other contact with them since that initial incident? Any threats made in weeks gone by? Any further confrontations?’

  ‘Not that he told me about. Honestly, we thought it was over, finished. Which is what we wanted. We didn’t ask to be abused, to be assaulted. We never asked for any of it. I spent three hours scrubbing that shit off the front of the house, for all the good it did me. And now this …’

  She opened up her hands as she spoke, as if indicating the breadth of her tragedy, but it seemed woefully inadequate, given how hollow, how shell-shocked she obviously felt.

  ‘And can I ask how things were between the pair of you?’

  Lilah looked up sharply, suspicion writ large on her face.

  ‘Were you happy? Was it a loving relationship?’

  ‘Of course, we’ve been together nearly ten years now. We were happy, are happy …’

  ‘It’s just that I can’t help noticing that you have a nasty bruise on your wrist.’

  Immediately, Lilah pulled her arms in, perhaps regretting exposing herself to view.

  ‘That’s nothing.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’

  ‘It was just a domestic accident, that’s all. I got my arm caught in the door …’ It sounded weak and unconvincing. ‘Martin and I, we had our ups and downs, like any couple,’ Lilah continued quickly. ‘But we were solid, happy …’

  She looked entreatingly at Helen, as if asking her, nicely, to shut down this topic of conversation.

  ‘Look, Lilah, I know this kind of thing is hard to talk about, especially now Martin’s gone. But if I’m going to work out why this happened, I need all the facts. Chapter and verse on you, Martin, your time together, what you did, where you went, how you were together …’

  ‘The state of our relationship has nothing to do with what happened this morning, I sw
ear. We were fine. Martin was attacked by mindless, racist thugs—’

  ‘Lilah, I’ve been doing this for over twenty years now. I’ve been in dozens of homes where there has been tension, even violence, between couples. It’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and I can tell you from experience that not talking about it is the very worst thing you can do. So please, if there were any issues, any conflict within your relationship, tell me now.’

  The bereaved woman stared at her, as if appalled by the request. ‘There is nothing to tell, because we were happy.’ She glared at Helen, challenging her to come back at her, before reiterating: ‘We were happy.’

  Chapter 47

  ‘You might want to take a look at this …’

  DC Edwards kept his voice low, which pleased Joseph Hudson. DCI Simmons had paid an unexpected visit to the incident room – to rally the troops and raise morale – and, clearly, Edwards knew where Simmons’s loyalties lay. The ambitious DC had summoned Hudson discreetly and appeared keen to keep his discovery between the pair of them. Encouraged by this display of loyalty and discretion, Hudson leaned in, carefully examining the photo on his terminal.

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Well, following this morning’s incident, DI Grace asked me to do some background research on recent incidences of hate crime, activities of local far-right groups, online trolling and so on …’ Edwards was speaking fast, as if keen to get through this preamble. ‘And as you can imagine, there’s a lot to take in.’ Edwards maximized a couple of tabs. ‘There’re reams of xenophobic and racist abuse on line, most of it pedalling a line about the rights of white Anglo-Saxons. The Chinese come in for a lot of abuse, but so does anyone else who’s not deemed to be properly “British”.’

  As Edwards spoke, Hudson’s eyes darted to the head shot of Martin Hill on the murder board.

  ‘There’s also a lot of activity amongst the neo-Nazi and far-right groups. Much of it driven by unemployment, anger, desperation, but also by a fear of crime. Groups of disaffected young men are mobilizing, promising to weed out “disruptive elements” in their communities.’

  He gestured to the screen, pulling Hudson’s attention back to the terminal. On it was a web page belonging to a group called Albion, whose credo was clear. The Union Jack provided the backdrop to the screeds of racially charged text and dire predictions of a future apocalypse, the red in the flag slowly running down the page like dripping blood.

  ‘If you can imagine a neo-Nazi version of Reclaim the Streets, this is it. They are actively recruiting, taking on anyone they deem racially “pure” to help them make Southampton “White again”. It’s completely confused and contradictory – the guys who run it seem to admire Churchill and Hitler – but their message has proved popular. They’ve got over four hundred followers, many of whom are happy to take up arms.’

  Once again, Edwards clicked, minimizing this screen and pulling up the photo again. Hudson drank in the detail – twenty or so young white males, most with shaven heads and animalistic expressions, berating Asian store owners and shoppers in Thornhill. Their victims looked scared and it wasn’t hard to see why – the young men were carrying baseball bats and looked ready to use them. Due to the hot weather, most of the aggressors were stripped to the waist, their Iron Eagle and Swastika tattoos clearly visible.

  ‘The prime mover in Albion is a man who calls himself Panzer, from the German word—’

  ‘Meaning armour,’ Hudson interrupted. ‘I know my history, DC Edwards.’

  ‘Sure, sorry. Anyway, he’s been very active of late. Organizing marches through deprived areas, making a number of inflammatory speeches and posting endless web messages urging his followers to fight back, to rid the streets of the “coloured vermin”.

  ‘Nice …’

  ‘We think his real name is Michael Sergeant. He’s been booked a number of times for hate crimes, though never charged. He’s currently under investigation for a hammer attack on a group of black teenagers on the Common three months ago—’

  ‘I remember it.’

  ‘—but that hasn’t stopped him urging his followers on to bigger and better things. In his last post, written three days ago, he actively calls for mob violence, telling people to fight back, to spill blood in the streets, to defend the British way of life, blah blah blah.’

  ‘And this is relevant how?’

  Hudson was intrigued by Edwards’s discoveries, but keen to get to the point.

  ‘Sorry. So, yeah, in this photo, we’ve got a clutch of his followers, smashing up local shops, scaring women and children. Some of them are known to us, some of them are new, but at the back I spotted this guy—’

  Hudson leaned in closer, scrutinizing a young man at the rear group. Stripped to the waist, his tattooed torso proudly displayed, the man had his fist clenched in some sort of salute, even as he screamed at an elderly Asian man. His face was turned away from the camera, but even at an angle, his features were distinct and familiar.

  ‘It’s Lee Moffat …’

  ‘Exactly. Turns out he’s got history in this area. His older brother, Jason, was a member of a group called Final Solution and Lee himself posts fairly regularly on Albion and its sister sites. He’s flirted with the English Defence League, the BNP in the past, but is now a full-time advocator for a race war.’

  Hudson stared at the young man’s features, which were contorted with hate.

  ‘Strange how his name keeps popping up, right?’ Edwards’s question was leading, seeking affirmation and approbation. Hudson was happy to oblige – this discovery another small but important part of the jigsaw.

  ‘Spot on. You’ve done well. Can you prioritize this line of enquiry, please, reporting back directly to me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Any links to Martin Hill, to planned hate crime in Portswood, anything that might link Lee Moffat to this morning’s murder, I want to know about it. And I want to know about it first.’

  ‘Course, boss. I’ll get right on it.’

  ‘Good man. You’re too experienced for grunt work, but sometimes the devil’s in the detail, right? You never know where it might take you.’

  Patting him on the back, Hudson walked back to his desk, passing DCI Simmons, who remained locked in conversation with DC Bentham. Having started the day angry and frustrated, Hudson now had a spring in his step. He had information that Helen Grace didn’t possess, evidence potentially linking Lee Moffat to three current investigations, plus a new ally in DC Edwards. The experienced officer’s career had plateaued under Grace’s leadership and if Hudson could encourage disloyalty, by seeming to offer better things ahead, then he wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

  Every ally was vital. And when the moment came to take Helen down, he would need all of them by his side.

  Chapter 48

  ‘You have one new voicemail message.’

  Helen could barely hear the words over the roar of her bike. Her Bluetooth-enabled helmet was top quality, but she was riding fast and loud, having been urgently summoned by Meredith Walker to a cul-de-sac not half a mile from this morning’s crime scene.

  ‘Helen, hi, it’s Robert Downing. We need to talk.’

  Surprised, Helen strained to hear, but the message now ended, as the caller hung up. Tapping her headset, Helen listened again, doubting she’d heard the message correctly, but there was no question that it was Downing. He sounded tense, agitated even, which intrigued her. Downing had seemed so cool, so collected when they’d last met. Had something happened in the interim?

  Helen’s first instinct was to call him back, in order to satisfy her curiosity. But even as she reached out towards her phone, she clocked activity ahead. A dozen uniformed officers, fluttering yellow crime tape and a handful of search officers in their distinctive sterile suits. She had reached Lena Gardens.

  Ditching her plans to call Downing back, Helen parked quickly, slipping on shoe coverings and eating up the yards to where Meredith Walker now stood, mopping h
er brow. Working in high temperatures was not pleasant for any forensics officer, but for once Meredith had a smile on her face. Lena Gardens was a quiet residential street, unused to fevered police activity, but today it had heralded an important discovery.

  ‘Where’d you find it?’

  ‘Down the drain,’ Meredith replied with a rueful smile. ‘Not very imaginative, perhaps, but needs must …’

  Helen kneeled down, taking in the murky hole in front of her. The grate had been lifted off, revealing a deep cavity of dried earth and rubbish, at the centre of which lay a stained Sainsbury’s bag.

  ‘What made you look here?’

  ‘Well, I pulled most of the team down to help with the fingertip search. Knives are usually dumped close to the scene, people don’t like to carry them once they’ve been used. They’re often disposed of in out-of-the way places – parks, alleyways, cul de sacs, that sort of thing – so we ignored the main thoroughfares to look at the quieter, residential streets. One of our guys spotted blood on the pavement, then a short trail of deposits leading to the drain. To be honest, it wasn’t very well hidden, just stuffed down there without much thought …’

  Helen nodded, intrigued. The actual murder had been very well planned and executed, leaving no obvious traces of the perpetrator behind. This was different, careless, even amateurish, which set her mind wondering. Was this a mistake, an oversight? Or were they meant to find it?

  ‘You’re convinced it is our weapon?’

  ‘We won’t know for sure till we get it back to the lab, but odds on. The blade is the right width, the handle shape looks right, given the bruising on the body and, as you can see, the blood is fresh.’