PROLOGUE
1991
The rugby club was bouncing, the DJ had the music cranked up so loud that if you pressed your hands against the walls, they vibrated. That was how Erica James knew that she’d drunk far too much. She was in the queue for the loos, her legs feeling like jelly and with the worst case of room spin she had ever had in her life. Leaning against the grubby white wall, she pressed her forehead against it to try and cool herself down and stop the floor from spinning underneath her feet. That green pint was what had tipped her over the edge; it was tradition that at your eighteenth you had to drink a green pint. What was precisely in it, she couldn’t tell you, but she knew for certain it had Vodka, gin, Pernod, blue bols – her stomach lurched just thinking about it. She had giggled as she’d passed Beth hers, and they’d crowded round the birthday girl watching her drink it whilst clapping and cheering her on. Then Beth had insisted that they all drink one too and, well, this was the result of that stupid decision. Everyone else was out there dancing and having a great time whilst all she could think about was not being sick or passing out. Three girls came out of the loos giggling, and she gave them the Vs. Silly cows, no idea what they were giggling at. Lurching into the toilets Erica barely made it to the empty stall before she threw her guts up, splashing bright green liquid over the toilet bowl, seat and floor. She felt herself sliding to her knees and wished to God that for once she’d not been a sheep and followed everyone else. Someone was knocking on the door; she buried her face in her hands and growled, ‘Sod off.’
Her white jeans were ruined; she could see splotches of the vile green alcohol all over them. She sat there and pushed her head back against the cubicle wall, closing her eyes and willing the room to stop spinning. Erica needed to go home; but she couldn’t drive now, she was going to have to get a taxi, if they’d let her in. She stank of puke and stale alcohol. Maybe Jason could drive her; he had a rugby match in the morning, so had told her he wasn’t drinking tonight. She’d left him sitting in a corner with his teammates whilst she got drunk and danced. Pulling herself up she stumbled out of the cubicle to the row of sinks and ran the cold tap, splashing water over her face, cupping handfuls of it into her mouth to try and get rid of the horrible taste lingering on her tongue. Finally able to look at herself in the mirror she was mortified: her freshly straightened hair was now a frizzy mess, her eyeliner and smoky eyeshadow were smudged, and she no longer looked like a blonde version of her favourite singer, Dolores O’Riordan, from The Cranberries. She’d toyed once with chopping her long blonde hair short and dyeing it black but had chickened out at her appointment. The music was thudding inside her head, but she felt a little better now that she’d thrown up. Blotting her face dry on a rough green paper towel, she pushed her way out of the toilets to go and find Jason.
The dance floor was pulsating with bodies all pushed close to each other and trying to move to the music. When she reached the corner where she’d left Jason, his friends were there but he wasn’t. She scanned the long line at the bar but couldn’t see him in the line. Turning back to his friends, she shouted, ‘Where’s Jason?’
They shrugged, and she rolled her eyes. Lucy saw her looking and pointed to the door mouthinghe went outside.What Lucy failed to tell her was who he had gone outside with. Oblivious that he might not be alone, she pushed her way through the crowds to get to the front door. She felt like crap and wanted to go home to bed.
The cool evening air hit her hard, and she found herself wobbling a bit more, but the breeze felt wonderful. She looked around. Jason wasn’t out here, and she didn’t know why he would be out here on his own anyway. Then she heard a high-pitched giggle from around the side of the building, a narrow alley leading to the back of the clubhouse where the bins were kept. She stumbled towards it hoping to ask whoever it was if they’d seen Jason. The voices stopped, and she heard a low groan: this time it was a much deeper voice. Every sense in her body was on high alert, she knew that voice, she knew that groan. As she rounded the corner she took in the sight in front of her. Jason was leaning against the wall his head pressed back against it, eyes closed, and that slut Sally was on her knees, her head in his crotch. Erica felt another rush of vomit fill her throat and she lurched to one side. She wanted to run at her and rip her hair out of her dirty head. Slap Jason and tell him he was finished and a cheating bastard. Instead she cupped her hand across her mouth and turned, stumbling towards the car park. She wanted to get out of here.
Pushing her fingers in her pocket she grabbed the keys for her little Peugeot 305, her eighteenth birthday present off her parents. The shame and anger were making her hands tremble. As she got into the driver’s seat a voice told her not to do it, to get out and walk home, but that little voice was drowned out by the drunken voice that was shouting louder. That voice was telling her to go, drive home and get away from here as fast as she could: she could show them all that she wasn’t going to be treated like this. She had only been driving three weeks, and she loved the freedom it gave to her. So, she started the engine, forgetting to put her seat belt on, forgetting to turn the headlights on. She reversed out of the space, banging into the bumper of the car parked next to her and giggling, then she sped out of the car park.
She was so angry with Jason. Her cheeks were burning, and she couldn’t get the image out of her head. The more she thought about it the faster she began driving, putting all the windows down so she could feel the cool evening air whipping her hair around her face. It was dark and Erica hasn’t switched her lights on. She didn’t see the stop sign or the markings on the junction that she was speeding towards. She didn’t see the couple ahead of her at the junction on their bicycles, arms out signalling they were turning right. She didn’t see any of it until it was too late, and she ploughed into them at speed. The horrific crunch of mangled metal filled the air as her car drove right through them. She didn’t know what she’d hit but knew it was bad. Her brain foggy, for the life of her she couldn’t figure out how to stop the car and ploughed straight into the wall of the bridge opposite with a huge bang and a trail of carnage behind her. Mangled bodies, push bikes and pooling blood spreading all over the road. She flew forwards with such force that she smashed through the windscreen, landing in a crumpled heap on the bonnet.
ONE
Sally Lawson always worked late on a Thursday. She always had, partly because it was the busiest day of the week in the salon and partly because she knew that this way she wouldn’t have to start making the tea. David was a terrible cook, his meals were like some form of torture, but working late meant she could stop off at the drive-thru and grab herself a burger, eating it slowly, in peace. Then it didn’t matter what dross he served up. On rare occasions he gave in and ordered pizza, much to their son Tim’s delight. She didn’t even feel guilty about avoiding them for an evening because lately Tim was being a complete teenage arsehole with his silent moods, and David was being, well, he was being very David, which was a nice way of saying boring. The queue for the drive-thru was the longest she’d ever seen – she could have parked up and gone inside, but that defeated the object of coming here in the first place. She listened to her audiobook in the car and was enthralled with Lisa Regan’s latest instalment in the Josie Quinn series. Everyone seemed to have far more exciting lives than she did, and thank God she had her books and book club to keep her sane. By the time she’d been handed her Quarter Pounder with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and Swiss cheese it was twenty past seven. Any minute now David would text her to see if she was on her way home.
Parking at the far end of the car park next to the overgrown bushes, she sat in darkness enjoying her burger. She checked her phone and was pleasantly surprised to see there were no messages or missed calls from either David or Tim. She sat back and enjoyed every bite of her burger, chewing slowly, there was no need to shove it down the back of her throat tonight. Normally she only ate a couple of the fries but not tonight; tonight she was a free woman, and she could enjoy them and the white chocolate milkshake. She checked her phone, it was 19.31 and still nothing from either her husband or son, this was a world record. Wiping her hands on the serviette, she got out of the car and walked the short distance to the rubbish bin, which had a large seagull sitting on top of it. She pushed the empty bag inside and shrugged at the gull. It watched her walk all the way back to the car, where she turned the engine on and put the windows down to get rid of the smell of the takeaway. It would take her another five or six minutes to get home; and by the morning the smell would be gone, and Tim would be none the wiser when she dropped him off at school.
Hest Bank Road was in one of the nicer areas of Rydal Falls. Here the houses were detached, with large gardens and drives big enough to fit three cars. Sally knew she was lucky, David had a great job at the University of Cumbria, her salon was thriving, and they didn’t have to worry about anything except David’s cooking. She had done a lot better than her friends, than her own parents even, and she was acutely aware of this. Sometimes she had to pinch herself as she drove down the street, past the beautiful homes, to reach hers, the biggest and most beautiful of them all. She frowned to see her house in darkness apart from the glow of the kitchen lights reflecting through the stained glass on the double front doors. This was strange, usually every light in the house was left on, signalling Tim and David were home. Neither of them seemed to care about the electricity bill. Sally smiled, maybe the latest one had arrived and now David had seen how much the rising costs were he’d gone around and turned the lights off. Her smile faded though. There was this fluttery feeling down in the depths of her stomach that was foreign to her, something didn’t feel quite right about that scenario.
Parking her Mercedes Roadster behind David’s brand-new Jaguar SUV she got out and stood on the drive. Not only was the house in darkness, but the drive lights were out too. She had to walk out onto the street to see the nearest house, which was some distance away. Maybe there was a power cut. She could see lights on there, though, and their drive was lit up. That sinking feeling deep down inside the pit of her stomach was telling her something was wrong. What did they call it, gut instinct? Taking out her phone she found she had no missed calls or messages. Grabbing her handbag off the front seat she locked the car and walked towards her front door. The handle twisted and she pushed it open, stepping inside. The bitter tang of copper tainted the air and she tried to place where she knew that smell from. Her entrance hall should smell of fresh apples from the plug-in air freshener, not this.
‘David.’
She called again, ‘David.’ Then much louder, ‘Tim, where are you guys?’
Sally was finding it hard to breathe because her heart had begun to race and every nerve ending in her body was telling her to run, get out of there. What if they’d had a terrible accident and she just left them there, injured? Scared to death of what she was going to find, her phone clutched in one hand, she dropped her bag on the floor and walked towards the only light source in the entire house. There was a breeze behind her, and she felt every hair on the back of her neck prickle at the slight change in temperature because of it. Turning her head slightly, she saw a figure stepping out of the shadowy hall closet behind her. They moved fast and before she could do anything, a thick plastic bag was pulled down over her head and she was struggling to breathe. Her long nails reached up trying to scratch at the hands that were holding the bag tight but, panicking, she felt herself being dragged towards the kitchen. Sally knew she didn’t want to go in there, she didn’t want to see what was waiting for her in her favourite room in the house. She was hot, so unbearably hot, and the bag was steaming up on the inside. Her lungs were on fire, and it was so hard to take in air. She felt her legs going weak as whoever this was dragged her towards the dining table. Dimly, she could see David and Tim. It must be some sick joke, whoever it was would take the bag off her head soon. She felt her body getting weaker, the heat so intense it was too hard to breathe. Then she was thrust down onto one of the chairs. Her eyes watering she blinked and looked towards David. Why wasn’t he helping her? And then she saw that both her husband and son were slumped forwards, plastic bags on their own heads. As her eyes travelled down she saw the source of the metallic smell that had hit her as soon as she’d walked into her house. They were both missing their right hands, bloodied stumps where they should be, and so much blood was pooled on the table in front of them. It hit her then, they were dead. Her family was dead. She could barely breathe. If she’d come straight home instead of going for a sneaky burger, she might have been able to stop this. She felt whoever was suffocating her grab her arm, something was tightened around her neck, holding the bag in place. She lifted one hand trying to claw at it to get it off, but the other was in a vice-like grip.
‘Do you know what this is, Sally?’ The voice in her ear was muffled through the plastic but she could hear it.
‘This is the hand of God.’
A glint of silver reflected in the light, and the last thing she saw before she took her last breath was the bloodstained blade of a huge meat cleaver swinging down towards her wrist.
TWO
Detective Constable Morgan Brookes hobbled through the front door of Ben’s house and sighed. She loved this house and the man who owned it more than anything. She was tired and her badly sprained ankle had been throbbing all day, making her pop painkillers like Tic Tacs, come to think of it that was probably why she was tired. Will Ashworth, her current sergeant, had dropped her off on his way home. It wasn’t really on his way home, in fact it was the complete opposite, but he was far too polite to mention it. He knew she needed to be here in Rydal Falls and, even though she wasn’t working on Ben’s team at the moment, she was praying she would be sent back any day now. Barrow was all well and good, but she missed her small team, which had become even smaller with Des’s murder. Which was why she was here; it was his funeral tomorrow and she wouldn’t miss it for the world. The house was silent, and she wondered if Ben wasn’t home. A loud miaow came from the direction of the kitchen, and she smiled to herself, setting the alarm on the security system then making her way there. Des’s cat, Kevin, had made himself quite at home in a corner of Ben’s large warm kitchen. He had a super soft, squishy cat bed that Ben had brought home from the garden centre the day after he’d been to collect Kevin from Des’s empty house, and an endless supply of cat biscuits from the automatic cat feeder he’d also bought. She laughed. This was the man who had firmly said ‘absolutely not’ to looking after the cat, because he hated them; this was also the man who had let Kevin sleep on their bed on the nights she worked late and couldn’t get a lift back from Barrow because of the stupid boot on her foot which stopped her from driving.
A shrill ring filled the air making her jump; no one except for work rang the house phone, and the rare cold caller. Making her way to the phone she picked up the handset. ‘Hello.’
‘Detective Matthews there?’
‘I don’t think he is, it’s DC Morgan Brookes, can I help?’
‘Oh, yes you can. Brilliant, can you get hold of him? He’s not answering his mobile. Tell him he’s needed at a house fire on Hest Bank Road. Fire said there are a couple of fatalities inside. If you can’t get hold of him then can you attend in the first instance?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She didn’t tell them that she wasn’t working this area and was on the Barrow list.
‘Cheers.’
Whoever it was at Control hadn’t introduced themselves or even given her the number of the house, although it should be pretty obvious if it was on fire. She sighed; it was never simple this life. Sometimes she wondered if she had been born to do this job – or had the job chosen her? Either way it didn’t matter, what was important was that some poor souls had perished in a house fire and that was just tragic. She rang Ben’s phone and heard it vibrating upstairs, maybe he was home after all. Kevin was pushing himself against the back of her calves and purring. Reaching the bottom of the stairs she called up, ‘Ben.’
‘Yeah,’ came the groggy reply from their bedroom, and she began to limp up the stairs.
