The Bad Things: A gripping crime thriller full of twists and turns

Mary-Jane Riley

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

Killer Reads

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Mary-Jane Riley 2015

Mary-Jane Riley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover layout design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2015 ISBN: 9780008153779

Version 2017-12-08

For Kim, Edward, Peter and Esme

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

NOW

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

THEN

Read on extract from After She Fell

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

The stench was overpowering. Katie squatted on her haunches and pulled at the zip. The material tore; the metal teeth nicked her finger. Thoughts flashed through her mind: should she wait? Could this be evidence? She lifted the lid. The sightless, decaying eyes of a child stared up at her. The little boy, for it must have been a boy, was dressed in blue Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas. His legs had been folded beneath his body so that he fitted neatly into the space. It rather looked, thought Katie, as if he’d been packed up, ready for death.

1

The day Alex Devlin’s life imploded for the second time was one of those bleak February days in Suffolk when the light never got above murky and spring seemed months away. Outside, whey-faced men and women were hunched inside their coats, trying to get their business done and move on. Shopping, working, maybe just passing the time in a warm coffee shop on the High Street. The streets of Sole Bay could be unforgiving.

Standing in the kitchen of her little terraced house with her third cup of coffee of the day, Alex rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension in them. She turned on the radio, hoping some background noise would help her relax.

‘And now the news with Susan Rae.’

She hoped the couple of hours’ work she’d put in polishing her news feature about an undercover policeman who’d infiltrated the murky world of Eastern European organized crime had been worth the early start. She’d been awake since four – Christ, always four; that time of night when everything seems to be at its worst – doing her usual bout of worrying about her sixteen-year-old and how she could make ends meet. Two hours of tossing and turning had been enough, and that was when she’d decided to get up and get on with some work.

‘Five people have died in a multiple-vehicle accident on the M25. It happened during the rush hour in thick fog…’

Now she wanted a few minutes to herself before Gus blew in moaning and groaning.

Too late.

‘So?’ He glared at her, mouth a sulky pout and arms crossed, his slightly aggressive ‘whatever’ stance perfected.

It was as if the night, the dark, the four a.m. worrying hadn’t happened; her son was carrying on the argument that had begun the evening before. Alex hoped he’d forgotten about it. Some hope.

She rubbed her temples, fighting against the headache that was slowly but inevitably building, pulsing behind one eye. ‘Choose your battles’ had been her mantra for the past two years, since her adorable boy with his blonde curls and loving cuddles had turned into a sullen teenager – all grunts and hormones.

‘The Ukrainian opposition in Kiev say they have pulled out of the City Hall they have been occupying for the…’

‘So no you can’t go skiing with the school. I’m sorry. Nothing’s changed overnight.’ Alex said it as gently as she could. She would have loved him to go; of course she would if she had the money. Cash was tight, work not exactly coming in thick and fast. But it wasn’t just the money. She had real difficulty letting her son go and allowing him to spread his wings. He knew it and resented her for it.

‘Why not?’

Alex turned away and opened the fridge, taking out a bottle of milk and a tub of butter. ‘Cereal or toast?’ she asked, hoping an appeal to his stomach might defuse the situation.

‘Mum. This is like, really important to me. Everyone’s going. All my mates. And they need to fill up the places. If I don’t go I’ll really, really miss out. Like, I’ll be the odd one out and you don’t want that, do you?’

She took the bread out of the bread bin and put a slice in the toaster. ‘You know why not, Gus.’

‘It’s just crap.’ His sudden shout made her jump. ‘I never get to do anything with my friends. Never get to go anywhere. It’s like you don’t want me to enjoy myself. Have mates or anything.’

She filled the kettle, opened the cupboard, and took out a teabag and a cup. She waited for the kettle to boil and for her irritation to subside. Pushing her hair behind her ears, she realized it needed a good cut and another home dye job. ‘You know that’s not true, Gus. I only ever want the best for—’

‘Give it a rest, Mum.’

‘Downing Street has welcomed a further fall in unemployment and the Prime Minister said…’

His slumped shoulders and look of defeat made her feel worse. Something shifted inside her, a realization that she had to loosen the ties just a little, had to put the trials and tribulations of the last few months behind her. Just be thankful he hadn’t been expelled: joyriding and smoking cannabis not being on the school curriculum.

‘Look,’ she said, knowing she was going to regret it, ‘when do you have to have the money by?’

‘You can still pay in instalments. About five now, I think.’ His sulky, cross expression had miraculously transformed into one of hope and she had to damp down the normal sinking feeling in her stomach that went with any mention of money. ‘So it’s not as if you’ve got to pay it all upfront. Mum?’

The kettle whistled and the toast popped up. Too dark. Alex poured the water onto the teabag and started scraping the toast. She breathed out, trying not to think of the electric and the gas and the phone that all needed paying. ‘Get me the letter about it and I’ll see what I can do.’ She squished the teabag on the side of the mug with a spoon before fishing it out and plopping it into the sink.

His face lit up with a smile, the now habitual petulant look banished, at least, for the moment. ‘Mum, you’re the best.’

A woman jailed in connection with the murders of two children fifteen years ago has had her conviction quashed by the High Court in London. Jackie Wood had been …’

Alex froze. Oh God, Sasha, she thought. Oh God, oh God.

2

Detective Inspector Kate Todd was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room idly flicking through a glossy magazine. She’d stabbed at the blasted machine on the wall that asked her personal questions in big letters, and confirmed it really was her for the appointment, before sitting down to wait; no doubt, in danger of catching some vile disease while she did so. The television murmured in the corner. She tried to focus on the magazine in her hands. Babies. Food for babies. Getting your baby to sleep. Bloody babies everywhere. She flung it down on the wooden table in front, eliciting a frown from the woman next to her.

‘Sorry,’ said Kate.

The woman gave her a small smile then shrugged. ‘They’re usually dead boring, those magazines. Years out of date, some of them. I’m reading about summer holidays three years ago.’

‘Hmm. Yes.’ Kate was being polite. Didn’t want to get into conversation. Just wanted to get this over and done with and back to the station. Not that there was much excitement there, either. No major incidents to speak of, unless you counted the work that was going into planning raids in some godforsaken town in the Fens to try and combat the trade in poor sods being brought over to work and live in filthy conditions. Cannabis factories upstairs, three or four families downstairs. Trouble was, planning involved more than one force: the National Crime Agency and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Had the potential to be a right cock-up.

Kate looked around the waiting room. No one she recognized. No one who looked as though they recognized her. That was the beauty of working in Ipswich but living in a small town some miles away – she was far less likely to come across any of her colleagues here.

‘This little one…’ The woman was talking again and Kate dragged herself back to the present. She noticed the woman was holding a bundle in her arms. A baby. How could she not have noticed? The woman carried on talking. ‘She was born with a hole in her heart. Had to have an operation when she was so tiny. Didn’t know if she would survive.’

Kate felt a sudden but familiar twist of fear in her chest.

‘So we have to come for check-ups quite often, don’t we sweetheart?’ The woman cooed at the baby and smiled that smile that cut the pair of them off from the world.

The fear was now coiling around her heart. Whoever said the heart was just an organ didn’t know anything. She took a deep breath and managed to put a pleasant look on her face.

‘You got any?’ asked the woman, who was now stroking her baby’s cheek with the side of her finger.

‘No,’ she said. She must have sounded abrupt because the woman blushed.

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’ Kate picked up another magazine. This time it was Designing Interiors. Safer, she hoped.

She tried to concentrate on how to organize her living space better, what colour palette to use for a south-facing conservatory, and the ‘beautiful home’ created by some D-list celebrity. She tried not to think of the row she’d had with Chris last night. It was the same row they’d been having off and on with varying degrees of severity for the past ten years. This time, she had been about to turn the light off when Chris said, ‘I wish you’d see someone.’

Her hand froze on the light switch. She was tired, had been doing paperwork for much of the day, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Now Chris had brought up the one subject guaranteed to make her tense and therefore lie awake for ages.

She gritted her teeth and looked over at her husband, who was lying in the bed, head on the pillow, hands crossed over his chest, his breath even. Eyes closed. Eyes bloody well closed. He always did that, so preventing her from having a damn good argument with him. She noticed lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there before, and wanted to trace them with her fingers. Her irritation drained away. Chris loved her without any strings attached, and she loved him for that. He was calm, made her feel peaceful. She adored watching him work, how his hands, rough and calloused, fashioned the most beautiful objects out of wood. She loved him. But she had strings.

‘Chris,’ she said, propping herself up on her elbow, knowing it was going to have to be her making the first move, knowing that this time she had to give him some hope.

He opened one eye, reached out for her, pulled her down into his arms. ‘Honey, I know how you feel, but…’

No, he didn’t know how she felt, not really. He couldn’t know the way her mouth went dry and her heart beat hard and fast whenever she thought about becoming pregnant, giving birth, having to look after another person who would totally depend on her. The emotional attachment scared her; the knowledge that, at some point, the child would leave and tear her heart out. Or worse, something – anything – could happen to him or her that would not only tear her heart out but stamp on it and throw it away. She knew it could happen. She’d seen it before.

‘Can’t we just adopt?’ Even as she said the words, she knew she didn’t mean them, and she knew what his answer would be.

‘Surely we ought to find out first if there’s any reason why we can’t have our own?’ His voice was gentle, and she felt hot tears gather at the back of her throat.

‘Maybe it is all down to me. Maybe I’ll never be able to conceive. Maybe I’m too old.’ Or maybe she should just stop taking the pill.

‘No, you’re not. And if it doesn’t happen soon, there is so much we can do. I just think it’s a good idea to be checked.’

‘Aren’t we happy as we are?’ she asked, guilt heavy on her shoulders.

‘Yes.’

‘Aren’t I enough for you?’

‘Darling, it’s not about that.’

‘I know,’ she said into his neck. ‘I know.’

He had gone by the time she woke in the morning – he often went for an early morning run, summer or winter, when he needed to clear his head, to give himself some thinking time.

As soon as she could, Kate rang the doctor’s surgery.

Which was why she was now sitting on a plastic chair, flicking through a magazine without seeing any words, and wishing she was at the station, drinking filthy coffee out of a flimsy cup and enjoying the banter between colleagues.

The buzzer sounded and Kate saw her name on the electronic noticeboard. She got up, and the woman with the baby gave her an encouraging smile.

She was nervous because she knew she was going to have to say something to the doctor, but she hadn’t worked out what yet.

She knocked on the door and went in.

The young woman GP, the appropriately named Dr Bones, looked up from her screen and smiled. ‘Take a seat, Kate. What can I do for you today?’

Kate sat and blinked. What was she supposed to say?

‘Kate?’

She cleared her throat. ‘The thing is Doctor…’ She thought of Chris and his kind face, the hands that worked so hard for her, the fact that he didn’t ask anything of her, just this one thing. ‘My husband wants a baby.’ She stopped, feeling helpless.

‘And?’ Doctor Bones prompted her gently, her head cocked to one side.

‘And I’m not sure I can.’

The doctor nodded. ‘Okay. So you’re…what —?’ She looked at her computer screen, ‘Thirty-eight and on the pill. No reason why you shouldn’t get pregnant, you know. A lot of women are having children later these days—’

‘It’s not that,’ Kate said. ‘Sometimes I think that if you’re not meant to have children then you shouldn’t go down that route.’

Doctor Bones nodded. ‘That’s certainly a view.’ She was waiting, wrists resting on the edge of her desk, for Kate to give her more.

What else? ‘I think there is so much misery in this world that I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do.’

‘The right thing?’

Kate looked at the walls, avoiding the doctor’s eyes. Saw the brightly coloured children’s paintings stuck up with Blu Tack, the height charts, the posters about healthy eating, even a chart to test eyesight. She gazed around the surgery, at the box of children’s toys in the corner, a child’s chair, everything catering for children. She refused to let the tears reach further than the back of her eyes.

‘You know, getting pregnant just because I…we…want a baby. It seems a bit selfish, you know.’ She shrugged, aware of how useless she was sounding.

‘And what does your husband think?’

‘Chris? Oh, he’s desperate for them. I mean, he doesn’t put it like that, obviously, but I know that’s what he thinks.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘No.’ Her eyes began to fill with tears. For God’s sake. She blinked furiously.

‘Kate,’ the doctor started gently, ‘I’m not sure what I can do for you.’

‘I only came because Chris…’ She tailed off and stood up. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I came really, I—’

‘Sit down, Kate.’

‘No. I’ve got to go back to work. Thank you for your time.’

Dr Bones looked at her computer screen. ‘You have a stressful job, Kate. Are you coping?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look, I’m going to give you some very mild antidepressants. You don’t have to take them, but they could help. And I’m going to put you on the waiting list for some counselling.’

Kate opened her mouth to object.

Doctor Bones held up her hand. ‘It’s just a waiting list. Have a think. It might be good to talk to someone other than your husband. An outsider. Okay? And I want to see you in a month.’

Kate could only nod.

Outside the doctor’s room she leaned against the wall and took deep breaths. The air was stifling. It had been a mistake to come here, but at least she’d done it and she would be able to tell Chris. And she would tell him that the doctor thought she was a bit down about things. It would buy her some time. Things would resolve themselves, wouldn’t they?

She hurried along the corridor and out into the waiting room. Luckily the woman and her baby weren’t there. She made her way to the swing doors at the back.

‘Ms Todd?’

Kate turned round. It was the pharmacist.

‘I’ll have your prescription ready in a minute, if you’d like to take a seat.’ The pharmacist smiled at her from through the hatch.

‘Right, thank you.’

Kate stared at the television still murmuring in the corner, sitting up when she saw the breaking news headline running across the bottom of the screen.

Jackie Wood wins High Court appeal.

She watched the pictures – Jackie Wood on the steps of the court, reporters waving microphones, cameras, people jostling one another, a self-satisfied man standing next to her, opening his mouth, talking, but Kate couldn’t hear what was said. She hardly needed to, the inference was clear. Jackie Wood, one of two people responsible for the deaths of two small children, had finally won her appeal.

‘Ms Todd? Your prescription is ready.’

Kate stood up automatically, walked over to the hatch, and took the paper bag handed to her by the pharmacist.

Then she went outside, got into her car, and rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

3

Sasha had always been the troublesome one. The needy one. The daughter their parents worried about. The one they spoke carefully to, treated with kid gloves. Alex had learned from a young age that Sasha had to be indulged. She was ten months younger than Alex, but when they were growing up Alex had often felt ten years older. ‘Look after your sister’ had been drummed in to her. The ‘poor me’ attitude Sasha cultivated had annoyed Alex all her life. Sasha was willowy, with fine blonde hair that curled attractively around her heart-shaped face. Whenever people saw the two of them together, they’d never believe they were sisters barely a year apart in age, because Alex was short with dark hair that was poker straight. She had also inherited her father’s sallow – if she was feeling kind towards herself she’d call it olive – complexion. Sasha was the beauty and Alex was not. Or Sasha had been the beauty. That was the thing. Nowadays, she was still thin, still had blonde hair and the heart-shaped face and the blue eyes, but her thinness was of the bag of bones variety, the blonde hair was unkempt, her glacial features sharp and her blue eyes empty. She also had to wear long sleeves to cover up the scars.

Sasha had never got over the loss of her twins. They were four years old when they went missing. One boy, one girl; the complete set, and both with her blonde hair and blue eyes. Harry was a typical boy: loved rough and tumble and was always grubby. Millie was much the same, but with that cute girlishness that made everyone want to hug her. She smiled all the time. They were adventurous children; curious, inquisitive, loving. It was Harry who turned up a few weeks later; Millie was never found.

Harry’s funeral was unbearable. The little white coffin balanced on the shoulder of Sasha’s husband, Jez, and all the mourners; each and every one of them thanking whatever God they worshipped it wasn’t happening to them. Alex had vowed to keep her own little boy safe. Unusually for that summer, the sky was grey and the drizzle didn’t stop. God’s tears, she heard someone say.

Alex wasn’t sure that either she or Sasha believed in God anymore.

Their parents were there; shocked and bewildered that something like this could be happening to them. The church looked beautiful; a medieval place of worship in the Suffolk countryside. St Mary Magdalene. Sasha and Jez had chosen to bury Harry in their parents’ parish because Sasha couldn’t bear to be in Sole Bay at the time. And she wanted somewhere quiet for him, somewhere the birds would sing and the sunlight would dapple through the trees and warm the earth beneath. So she chose the next door village, where their parents had moved to when she and Alex left home. Someone – the good ladies of the parish, Alex supposed – had decorated the church with roses and willow and honeysuckle that scented the air. Harry was buried in the little graveyard at the back and it was overwhelming to see the tiny mound of earth that was going to hide his coffin forever.