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A body has been found in a frozen lake, bringing a gruesome act of evil into the light.
One look at the victim is enough for DCI Claire Winters to recognise the work of a warped mind. And when another woman is reported missing, Claire’s worst fears are confirmed: this is a killer who plans to strike again.
As the body count rises, the pressure is on for DCI Claire Winters to find the perpetrator and bring them to justice. But first, she must learn to understand the twisted mind behind the crimes. And that will take her to a darker place than she ever thought possible.
Loved DCI Helen Grace and DI Kim Stone? Don’t miss the second book in the addictive new DCI Claire Winters series.
Also by T. M. E. Walsh
For All Our Sins
The Principle of Evil
T. M. E. Walsh
Copyright
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016
Copyright © T. M. E. Walsh 2016
T. M. E. Walsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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, downloaded, 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-book Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9781474046541
Version date: 2018-09-20
TANIA (T. M. E.) WALSH began writing full time after becoming a casualty to the recession in late 2008. She successfully self-published the first two novels in the DCI Claire Winters series in 2013, and both appeared in the various best-selling Amazon Kindle charts before being picked up by HQ Digital in 2015. In 2011 Tania was the winner of the Wannabe a Writer competition sponsored by Writing Magazine and judged by Matt Bates, the Fiction buyer for WHSmith Travel.
Although writing now takes up most of her time, Tania has previously produced digital artwork that was published on a DVD-ROM for ImagineFX magazine’s FXPosé section twice in the early and latter part of 2007, which has been published worldwide. Tania is currently working on a new standalone novel and a third book in the DCI Claire Winters series. She lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and young daughter. You can follow her at tmewalsh.com, facebook.com/tmewalsh or @tmewalsh.
Thank you to the dedicated team at HQ Digital. Special thanks to Anna for designing my fantastic book covers. You’ve captured the tone of the DCI Winters series perfectly. To my editor, Clio Cornish, thank you for your continued support for the series. Your advice and input on this novel has been invaluable.
Further thanks to my husband Daniel, for everything you do that allows me to write full time.
Special thanks to Willow Thomas. You’ve been there since the ‘early days’. I will always be eternally grateful to you.
For my parents, Sandra and Stewart.
Also in loving memory of Angela Walsh – truly the luck of the Irish, who would’ve got such a kick out of this.
Contents
Cover
Blurb
Book List
Title Page
Copyright
Author Bio
Acknowledgement
Dedication
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Two
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
Part Three
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
Part Four
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Part Five
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Epilogue
Endpages
About the Publisher
‘He got inside my head. He twisted it, danced around in it, leaving nothing behind but bad memories and bloody footprints.’
31st October
She tasted the earth, the dead leaves and the damp as she crawled on her belly.
The bitter wind rose. It raged through the trees like something possessed, scattering the last remaining dead leaves that had once clung to the skeletal branches. Shivering uncontrollably, she pressed her body harder to the ground, willing it to open and swallow her whole.
Don’t let him see me from here.
Was she hoping or praying? She didn’t know any more.
God hadn’t been with her when she needed Him the most, not for a long time. Not since the accident. Nothing had come to ease her grief then and nothing would come now. Why wait for some divine intervention to carry her from this wretched place? She could only rely on herself, and look where that had got her. There wasn’t any hope of escape. Not now. The gash on her ankle had seen to that. Nothing left now except the time before he killed her.
He’d desecrate her body, but not her soul. A soul that had already been ripped to shreds and lain broken, slowly dying a piece at a time since the day of the accident. The day her life broke down into nothing meaningful, just something wretched, languishing in self-pity.
The man who was tracking her would be following the trail of blood, seeping from the wound on her ankle. For all she knew, he could be standing right behind her now, watching in silence, waiting to strike the final blow. The great calm before the storm.
Her bruised ribs prevented her from rolling on her back. She sucked in a deep breath against the dank earth, soil creeping inside her mouth, between parched lips. She dug her fingers in deep, nails raking through the mud.
She pulled.
Just a little further towards the bushes. I can make it. I have to. Ignore the pain.
Then she heard it. She froze with the fright and the possibility that death was coming even sooner than imagined. She wondered if it was delirium or if the noise close behind her was as real as the hot tears falling down her face.
No, the sound of crushing twigs was much closer now. It was as real as the heat of his breath now upon her neck.
He appeared almost from nowhere, creeping through the oily blackness.
He was determined.
He would kill her.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose, gooseflesh puckering her skin. There was a moment there in the darkness when she thought he might speak to her. She heard his sharp intake of breath… but nothing more. She hadn’t the courage to look into his cold dark eyes again. The weight of his boot pressed down on her neck, burying her face deeper into the soil.
Sweet Jesus, just let this be over quickly.
He stooped down close, replaced his boot with an icy hand. She braced herself. Her eyes squeezed shut when she felt the sharp tip of the blade, the cold edge of steel.
She felt no pain at first, just a forceful punch to the neck.
Then came the pain.
She felt her warm blood pouring down her neck, onto the ground, drenching the earth. Then the rain came. Icy fat droplets, pattering over her bare skin.
As her mind took her beyond the pain, spiriting her away high above the violence below, the last thoughts that ran through her head were of her husband and their two children.
She could see them clearly, as alive now as they had been a year ago. They were playing in the cornfield behind the house where she had grown up. A year without them had felt like an eternity, but she knew they had always been with her and would be until the very end.
Isabelle and Jasmine, my beautiful girls. And Anthony. I’ve missed you all so much. I’m coming back to you.
The vision of her husband blurred with reality but she was sure he was walking towards her, hands reaching out, lips greeting her with a smile. Her fingers splayed and ached for the touch of his skin, just as the darkness carried her away.
PART ONE
Present Day
5th November
‘Don’t run… don’t run from me.’
There, deep in the wood, she hears the voice again. The same voice that had haunted her, followed her desperately. Relentlessly for months.
‘Don’t run, wait for me. I can offer you so much more if you’d only let me.’
But she cannot stop. She cannot learn to walk through this world again, not while the fear has a hold of her body, heart and soul.
She runs down the track through the trees. She cannot place the voice, nor tell if it’s male or female. It rings like a cacophony of sounds in her head.
She risks a glance down at her feet. They are bare once again, deep in the snow. The forest floor beneath the ice scratches at her skin, and she leaves drops of blood in her wake.
She panics.
Someone will follow her home, chasing the scarlet trail left behind. But where is home? She cannot find it. Ahead, there is nothing but forest.
The mist circles the trees around her, the same as every time she sees them.
This world is stripped. Void of colour. Void of time.
Her heart pounds in her chest, but she can never understand who or what she runs from. Inside, the only thing that is always certain, is the fear. It relentlessly courses through her veins.
She sees the clearing ahead. She wants to turn the other way. She has been here time and time before, but never understands why. A force is driving her forward, which she cannot control. She runs as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.
She reaches the clearing… stops.
The voice is there, behind her.
She turns; ready to confront whatever it is that hunts her…
It’s Him.
As she feared it would be; a ghost from the past.
She’s almost afraid to look into his eyes, but when she does, she sees there is nothing there but darkness. Hollow pits where brilliant eyes once shone.
He reaches out, and before she can stop him, his hand grabs her hair, ripping clumps out by the roots.
Then fingers are at her chest. They tear through icy flesh, nails scratching against bone, against ribs, hungry for her heart.
As she cries out, his mouth opens in a silent scream, blood pouring out from within.
CHAPTER 1
Detective Chief Inspector Claire Winters bolted upright, eyes snapping open.
She was shrouded in darkness and it took her several seconds to realise where she was as her eyes adjusted to her surroundings.
Her head was spinning but soon the shadows stopped moving and became solid shapes, pieces of furniture she soon began to recognise in her living room.
Her hands grabbed at her chest, which was slick with sweat despite the chill of the room. A sigh of relief shuddered through her body when she realised her skin, flesh and bone were still intact.
She pushed back the stray strands of blonde hair from her face, and then held her head in her hands. Night terrors had become part of her, almost feeling as physical as something she wore, but it was no badge of honour.
That one had been one of the worst she’d had in the last year. Usually they followed the same familiar pattern, but with subtle differences.
She sucked in a deep breath, held it until her chest ached.
Despite knowing who it was she ran from by the end of each frantic nightmare, this was the first time she’d actually seen Him – or at least some twisted version of Him.
Her hands slid down her face, wiping back tears that had begun to fall. Ice-blue coloured eyes glassed over as she eventually let the tears fall freely, staining the pale flesh of her cheeks.
A loud bang outside made her jump, bolting off the sofa, stumbling over the blanket that had fallen at her feet. A series of smaller hissing sounds then followed, erupting in a series of loud bangs, and bright lights flashed behind the curtains that she had drawn earlier.
She hugged her arms tightly around her torso and shivered. She wore a rough knit jumper, its coarseness scratching at her skin, with skinny jeans that were slack at the waist and had begun to bag at the knees. She’d lost a stone in weight in the last year, but she refused to buy new clothes.
She was startled by the cracking sound as sparks seemed to dance across the roof of her house, raining down in a night so cold it stole your breath away.
She pulled back the curtain of the nearest window and saw the bright coloured fragments scatter in the sky.
Fireworks had been let off from the house somewhere across the road, at the bottom of the drive.
She released the breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding. She caught her reflection in the cold glass. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and what little lines she did have across her forehead had deepened.
She imagined she saw Him beside her, staring at their reflections. His eyes, seen moments before in the nightmare, still black pits.
Hollow.
That summed up how she felt.
She looked at Him, then squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Go away,’ she said. When she opened them again, she felt the fog in her mind begin to clear a little. ‘It’s just a nightmare,’ she said in the darkness.
After several moments passed she went back to the sofa and felt for her phone, her head feeling thick, disorientated. She unlocked the screen and checked the time.
18:36.
She had less than an hour before she was due to be at the annual firework display in Haverbridge. She contemplated not going, and pulled up the last text message she had sent, about to send her excuses.
She flicked on the light, and looked around the room, phone clutched in a sweaty palm. The house looked as it had done a few hours ago when she’d decided to just rest her eyes.
The night terrors took their toll on her. Rarely a week went past without being woken by them. Grabbing a short sleep here and there when she could had been her way of coping with it for many months now.
She knew it couldn’t go on like this, but no way would she ask for help.
This was something she had to overcome on her own… and she would, in her own time.
*
She headed up the stairs and put on clean clothes, dumping the sweat drenched ones in the laundry basket, before heading to the bathroom.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet.
Her skin had taken on a grey tinge of late and her frame appeared gaunt. Others had noticed, made comments. She lowered her eyes, casting a critical eye over her stomach when she lifted her jumper.
For someone who had once taken so much pride in her appearance, even she knew her standards had slipped a little.
She could hear her colleagues’ comments in her head, whispering their concerns when they thought she couldn’t hear them.
The self-pity crept in briefly, before it was pushed aside by the resilience she was known for. Soft, kind eyes became hard once again, a steely glare cast at her reflection in the mirror.
Fuck them, she thought.
She splashed cold water on her cheeks, determined she would leave the house and at least appear to be social.
This is not me, she told herself inwardly. I am in control.
Minutes later she was sitting in her car, engine running, heaters clearing the fog from the windows, tapping out a text.
You twisted my arm. On my way.
She pressed send before she could change her mind, put the phone in her pocket, and headed down the drive, mindful of the ice on the ground that twinkled in the brightness of the headlights.
She headed out of Hexton, and on towards Haverbridge, taking the scenic route, passing another sleepy village before the road cut through open fields.
She sucked in deep breaths when her mind started to clog with the familiar uneasiness of before. When she breathed, she could see the faintness of her breath expelled like puffs of smoke from between parched lips.
She turned the heating up a little more and tried to relax her body. Tight muscles soon began to relax into the seat. She felt the ache in her jaw and realised she’d been clenching her teeth together. She swallowed hard, focusing on the stillness of the country road, where frosty skeletal trees and bushes hugged it from both sides.
This year autumn appeared to have bypassed the UK entirely, and winter seemed to have taken the Hertfordshire town of Haverbridge, where she worked, into its relentless clutches much earlier than anticipated.
The large town had a population just short of 100,000 people and was situated some thirty miles from London. Haverbridge had grown over the years, becoming a commuters’ paradise for those who worked in the capital but didn’t want the bright lights of the colourful city in their backyard at home time. They wanted to say goodnight and really mean it.
Haverbridge was beautiful, yet ugly in so many ways – not dissimilar to other towns and cities up and down the UK – but Haverbridge had a different side to it. It was exceptionally beautiful in the darker months. What made it so striking, you couldn’t easily describe; it just was.
The summer sun had long disappeared and the threat of early snowfall was a very real one.
For Claire, it was bad news. It made her fall easily into an abyss of self-loathing and bitterness, something she was prone to. The cold haunted her like a restless spirit and the chill was not good for her bones.
She glanced at the clock on the dash. She’d be a little late, but she knew Stefan would understand. She took the road leading to the motorway, and as she travelled at a steady 60mph, she looked at the road ahead, bright lights and traffic rushing past, through eyes that didn’t quite feel like her own.
One day earlier
The man glanced around the car park and stifled a yawn as he looked down at his watch. He snuggled down further in the driver’s seat; his thick padded coat was warm and inviting. He was sleepy and wished he could close his eyes.
The body in the boot – it’s now or never.
His car was the only one there, almost hidden in the darkness. The cold air hit his face when he emerged from the car. It caught him unawares and he gasped instinctively, clasping his hands tightly together, rubbing them for warmth.
When he stood in front of the boot, his hand hovered over it as if he had second thoughts about what he was about to do, as if the final act were any worse than what came before it.
The light inside the boot cast a dull light on what was inside. He looked down at the black bin liners, wrapped crudely around the majority of the body. Only the bottom half of the legs were left uncovered.
The once soft skin now looked waxy. He thought back to when those legs had kicked out at him, before he’d secured them together.
Shame, really.
This one had had such spirit.
His hands reached in and grabbed cold limbs. He began to haul the body carefully out onto the frozen ground.
CHAPTER 2
5th November
There was a huge whizz followed by a violent crack in the night sky as the firework exploded high above their heads.
Claire jumped, instinctively closing the gap between herself and Detective Inspector Stefan Fletcher. He glanced down at her, his tall thin frame buried in an oversized padded coat against the cold. He saw her tense, and ease herself a step or two away from his personal space.
He smiled inwardly.
Aloof and sometimes proud, with walls built so high that they could rarely be penetrated. These were Claire’s bad points, but she wore the traits with pride, giving off the impression that nothing could faze her.