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CHAPTER 1
The peaked rooftop of Billings factory reached into an indigo sky, thick with the promise of rain.
Rhys ran across the car park. 'Come on, let's try the door!'
Connor dragged his feet. It had been fun, sneaking around the deserted industrial estate, throwing stones at the windows; climbing through gaps in the hedging; using the old CCTV cameras for target practice. He wasn't sure he wanted to venture inside though. 'What if it's got an alarm?'
'Don't be stupid, these factories were emptied months ago. They won't be alarmed now.' Rhys tried the handle, but it stayed firm.
A glance skyward. The May rain clouds were beckoning an early dusk, tainting the air a murky grey.
'We should get back, I'm supposed to be in by nine.'
Rhys disappeared down the channel between the factory wall and the metal fencing marking its perimeter. The sound of a boot kicking a door followed.
'What're you doing?' Connor said, jogging across the tarmac to join him.
'What does it look like?' He moved around the back, tried another door. The handle was loose. It rattled, pulled back slightly. Rhys glanced at Connor and tugged harder. The door juddered open. 'Here we are.'
The onset of night was thicker inside. They stepped over the threshold, into a small corridor with double doors facing them. Rhys pushed at one of the doors and they slipped into a wide open room. Pools of light streamed in from high windows, highlighting the scuffs and oil stains littering the floor.
Rhys grinned, held out his arms and turned 360 degrees. 'Whoa!'
'It stinks,' Connor said, grabbing his nose.
'That's 'cos it's been shut up.'
Rhys bent down, scooped up an empty glue can and tossed it up towards a window. It landed just beneath the glass, pinging off the ledge, and fell back at their feet.
Connor nudged it with his toe, Rhys kicked it back. As they moved down the factory, passing the can to one another, Connor's shoulders slackened. It wasn't so bad inside. Not really.
Rhys yanked at the door of a metal cupboard on the far wall. The hinges squealed like nails on a chalkboard as it opened. Inside, a couple of well- used brooms were stored beside a stained mop bucket. They exchanged an excited glance and wrestled the handles off the brushes.
One arm held out for balance, they fought with the sticks, moving up and down the factory like musketeers until Connor lost his footing, stumbled and slipped against a row of oil drums, sending one of them crashing to the floor. The noise reverberated around the factory. As Connor pulled himself up, a line of oil trickled out of the drum, encircling a dirty needle on the floor behind. Spots of blood inside the attached syringe made his stomach turn. 'We should go,' he said.
Rhys wasn't listening. He hadn't seen the syringe, was already halfway up the stairs in the corner, his trainers tap-tap-tapping against the metal lip of each step.
A low hum started in Connor's head. 'Rhys!' He checked over his shoulder and followed.
The door at the top of the stairs opened into another large room. A full moon had parted the rain clouds, its light streaming through the window and casting a milky glow across clumps of desks the former occupier had left behind. Discarded chairs were scattered about haphazardly.
Connor gripped his nose with his free hand. The stench was stronger up there. The hum in his head intensified.
A faint scratching sounded.
'What's that?' Rhys said.
Another scratch. Behind them. They whisked around, spotted a baby rat crouched in the corner. Rhys inched forward, lifting the broom handle. Then drove it to the floor. The creature scuttled under a desk.
He chased after it, thrust the handle beneath the desk. More scratches. He poked it in further, pulled back. Rushed to the other side, Connor on his tail.
The rat ran out, squeaked. Rhys doubled back to follow it, colliding with Connor. The whole building seemed to shake as they tumbled to the floor. The hum in Connor's head cut.
'Idiot,' Connor said. He pushed his friend aside, checked his limbs. The cords of the carpet were rough, unforgiving. When he lifted his hand, it was damp. It looked like blood.
'Urgh!' He wriggled back, turned. And froze.
A pair of legs stuck out the side of a far desk. Denim jeans; the laces of yellow trainers hanging loose.
He elbowed Rhys. Pointed.
Rhys's jaw dropped.
They peered around the corner of the desk together. And came face to face with a woman propped up against the radiator.
Rhys jumped, screamed. Slid back across the carpet.
Connor stilled, his breaths halted, staring at her. She didn't flinch. Slowly he edged towards her, pointing the tip of the broom handle, still in his hand.
'Don't!' Rhys hissed.
Connor ignored him and tapped her foot. It wobbled from side to side. Glassy eyes stared through a mop of dark curls.
For a second, they gawped at the corpse in front of them, paralysed in fear. Then Rhys scrabbled back and jumped to his feet. 'We gotta get out of here.'
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Rhys's words rang out in Connor's head as he arrived home. 'We tell no one.'
They'd run from the factory, out of the industrial estate and kept running, until their lungs burned and their chests ached. Only when they reached the park at the back of Weston High Street did they slump to the floor, hidden in the shadows, pressing their backs against the wrought-iron fence.
The conversation they had there whirled in Connor's mind, like a song on permanent repeat. He'd wanted to call the police. Rhys refused. 'Even if we don't tell them who we are, they'll trace our mobiles,' he'd said. Rhys knew a lot about police work. His father was serving a sentence after stabbing a man in the leg during a pub fight; his sister was awaiting trial for supplying drugs.
'We haven't done anything wrong,' Connor had countered.
'We shouldn't have been there. We were trespassing. No, we go home. Clean up. Carry on as if nothing happened. Someone will find her soon enough.'
Connor's throat had thickened as he'd walked home. In many ways, Rhys was right, he couldn't afford a visit from the police either, his mother was still reeling after discovering he'd skipped the last day of school and spent it playing football in the local park. There was nothing they could do to help the woman. But the gruesome sight of her glassy eyes, all that blood, kept popping into his head, making him shiver.
The living room door sat ajar, a line of amber light seeping in from the hallway. The babble of the television filtered through from the front room. A distant chuckle: his mother. She was watching one of those comedy panel shows she liked so much.
He quietly kicked off his trainers, scooped them up. The chill of the quarry tiles seeped through his socks as he tiptoed across the floor. He reached the washer, cast another glance towards the hallway, ears on hyper alert while he peeled off his jeans, shrugged off his hoody and shoved them in the machine, followed by his trainers.
Connor was used to washing; he'd lost count of the number of football kits he'd put through when his mum was working. The powder skittered about on top of the clothes.
He heard music come from the front room. The show was finishing. He put the powder away, turned the dial, pressed the On switch. The machine did nothing. Connor swallowed, turned the dial back. It was chilly standing there in his pants and socks. He needed to go upstairs, before his mother caught him. But he'd wiped his bloody hands on his clothes, couldn't leave them like this.
Frantically, he turned the dial again. It clicked. Thank God. He crept past the front room and up the stairs.
Connor was just closing his bedroom door when he heard the music stop and his mother pad into the kitchen.
CHAPTER 2
The sound of a high-pitched scream pierced the air. A shrill yelp. Another scream, followed by a low growl. The cats were at it again. Third time that evening. Detective Chief Inspector Helen Lavery rested her back against the pillows, willing them to find somewhere else to finish their argument.
She flipped a page of the notebook beside her and glanced blandly at the scrawl. For eight weeks she'd been signed off work following an injury on duty. Eight weeks and she returned to a stream of training courses. Out of the window she could see the rooftops of the College of Policing in Ryton- on-Dunsmore, where, for the past three days, she'd been engaged in an update on Command Skills. Tomorrow, she was due to head back to Hampton, her home force, for computer-based training.
Helen pulled the tie out of her hair and raked her fingers through it. She'd been looking forward to returning to work and her team at the Homicide and Major Incident Squad; a new case to tax her brain cells. Although endless hours of PowerPoint presentations and role play scenarios left her numb.
She finished the final drops of coffee, placed her mug on the side and glanced around the hotel room. Chic black and white decor mixed with chrome and glass furniture. Smart, perfunctory and soulless. She checked her phone. No messages. Bored, she turned on the television and flicked through the channels. The mixture of game shows and sitcoms didn't appeal, and, after the eighth channel, she switched it off.
Rain lashed against the window. It seemed a fitting end to a frustrating few days.
Helen checked her watch. Quarter to ten. Usually, without the ticking clock of a live case pressing, she'd have been home for hours by now. But the advent of the May half-term holiday meant her mother had taken the kids away for an activity week in Wales – not that she could imagine her mother doing much rock climbing and rafting – and the thought of rattling around an empty house alone was not appealing. Instead, she'd decided to pamper herself with a massage and freshly cooked cuisine on the last night of her course and booked into this hotel near the training centre. The cats outside howled again. Although, right now, she was beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea.
Footsteps along the corridor. A knock at the door. The iridescent hallway lighting induced a twinge of pain behind her left eye as she answered. She held up her hand to shade it. The waiter gave a smile that didn't reach his lips, bowed his head slightly and carried a bottle of red on a round silver tray into the room. A single upturned glass rattled against the metal. He glanced down fleetingly at her empty ring finger before he placed it on her bedside table.
Helen tucked the hand behind her. Only last month she'd changed her wedding band to her other hand – it seemed the right thing to do, John had been dead over ten years, after all – though she still felt uncomfortable when people viewed her empty finger.
'Will that be all?' he said.
She looked at the wine, tempted to ask him to take the bottle back, to say she'd only ordered a glass, but changed her mind at the last minute. It wasn't as if she didn't fancy a couple of glasses. There was nothing to travel home for.
The pain in her head subsided as she closed the door and turned back into the dull lamplight of her room. The bottle was in her hand, the velvet liquid drizzling into her glass when her mobile phone trilled.
'Detective Chief Inspector Lavery?'
'Yes.'
'It's Inspector Carrington from the control room. We've an incident for you.'
A rush of excitement immediately pulsed through her. A new case would excuse her from a week of staring at computer screens.
'What do you have?'
'The body of a young woman has been found in a disused factory on Keys Trading Estate.'
She took down the address, checking back to ensure she'd recorded the details correctly.
'What do we know?'
A rustle of paper in the background. 'A dog walker called the control room after he saw some kids running from the former Billings factory unit. When the patrol car arrived, they discovered the body inside.'
'Any other witnesses?'
'Not yet. CID are in attendance and acting DI Pemberton is already at the scene. He'll be able to give you more information.'
Helen balanced the phone between her chin and shoulder and checked her watch. Keys Trading Estate was off Hampton ring road, on the east of the city. If she left now, she could be there in forty minutes. 'Thanks. I'll give him a call.'
'There's something else you need to know.' The inspector hesitated and lowered his voice. 'The response officer recognised a tattoo on the victim's wrist. He's pretty sure she's one of us.'
Helen's blood chilled. 'Who is it?'
'He thinks it's PC Sinead O'Donnell, ma'am, from incident response.' Helen wracked her brains. She couldn't immediately place her, but with over a thousand officers to choose from in the Hampton force alone, it wasn't surprising. 'She'd been tortured.'
Her mouth dried. 'I hope none of that information has been shared.'
'Not as far as I'm aware.'
'Good. Keep it to yourself for now, would you?' Chances are, if he was party to the victim's identity then others would be too. News spread like wildfire in the police. She rang off, cast the wine aside and dialled Pemberton.
He answered on the second ring. 'Good to hear from you, ma'am,' he said.
'You too, Sean.' The broad timbre of his Yorkshire accent was like a warm coffee on a cold winter's evening. Pemberton was a dependable and reliable detective. In many ways, he reminded her of her late father, James Lavery, who'd managed the Homicide and Major Incident Squad for fifteen years before his retirement. At least her crime scene was in good hands, for now. 'I understand you are at the factory unit. Can you give me a quick update?'
'Sure. Uniform responded to a disturbance at Billings factory at 8.50 p.m. on Keys Trading Estate this evening. Billings is one of the factories the developer has earmarked to flatten and turn into housing on the southern edge of the estate and is currently empty. When the patrol officers arrived, they found the body of a woman, looks like she's been badly beaten, in the first-floor offices. She was chained to the radiator with a pair of handcuffs.'
'What do we know about the informant?'
'Graham Kirby of Cheshunt Walk. Isn't known to us.'
'Did he see anything else nearby?'
'He said not. According to him, he'd been walking his dog down the Bracken Way that runs alongside. He spotted two kids running from the factory through the gaps in the metal fencing. Uniform have gone out to take a first account.'
'What about the victim?'
His voice softened. 'Multiple injuries to the head and chest; looks like her throat's been cut. The pathologist should be here soon, hopefully he'll be able to tell us more.' He paused. 'I guess you'll have heard the rumour mill, that she's police?'
'The control room inspector mentioned it might be a PC, Sinead O'Donnell. Do you know her?'
'No. I know her husband, Blane O'Donnell, though. Works in training.'
Helen's stomach dipped. It was difficult enough to protect the confidentiality of a victim's identity before the family were informed, but within the police it was practically impossible. 'How far has this been shared, Sean?'
'One of the uniform guys attending was a rookie, barely out of probation. He mentioned it on the radio.'
'On the radio?'
Pemberton heaved a heavy sigh. 'Poor lad, he was in shock. Didn't think. It was his first dead body.'
The pang of sympathy that nudged Helen was short-lived. First body and it was a colleague, a mutilated one. But bad news was a sad fact in their line of work and confidentiality paramount. The system relied heavily on discretion. Obtain identification, inform next of kin, then confirm before any names are publicised. It was ingrained into officers from the beginning of their basic training. 'Where is he now?'
'The duty sergeant sent him home.'
'Has anyone spoken with Blane yet?'
'Not that I'm aware of.'
'I take it he's her next of kin?'
'I believe so.'
'Get a mobile fingerprint machine down there, will you? We'll need to get her identity confirmed and, if it is her, contact Blane before the gossip spreads further. Has anyone reported her missing?'
'Not yet. According to the duty rota, she's been on annual leave the last couple of days.'
'Okay, see if you can contain it. I'll be there as soon as I can.'
'Will do. The machine's already on its way.' He was quiet a moment. 'There'll only be prints available from her right hand. The fingers have been chopped off at the knuckle on the left.'
CHAPTER 3
Helen signed the scene log and ducked underneath the blue and white police tape. Billings factory was a 1970s prefabricated construction, with a rolling factory door marking the goods-in entrance at one end of the building, and a reception area at the other.
The car park out front was empty. Flashing lights on the police cars parked beside the cordon intermittently lit up the surrounding derelict units, all awaiting destruction. The council had sold the land, part of their plan to renew urban areas, although she recalled reading about the new owner in the local news, a property developer, experiencing financial difficulties. They'd certainly been sitting empty for a while.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Deathly Silence"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Jane Isaac.
Excerpted by permission of Legend Times Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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