Let the Dead Speak: A gripping new thriller

‘You’d think so.’ Derwent yawned. ‘She’s probably in an outhouse somewhere, or a ditch.’

‘Or some leafy bit of countryside where she won’t be found for a year or two.’

‘By a dog walker who will never get over the shock of Rex digging up an actual human bone to chew.’ Derwent grinned. ‘That’s one reason why I’m never getting a dog. It’s not as if I need more corpses in my life.’

‘This one would be nice to find.’ I was looking at Kate Emery’s house where there was a uniformed officer standing guard. Flapping tape still cordoned off the house. ‘Where would you dump a body if you killed someone here?’

‘I wouldn’t. I’d leave it where it is. Move a body and you contaminate your car or van. You transfer trace evidence to the body and the car, and yourself. Your risk of being discovered goes up massively. Unless you’ve got an amazing place to hide it, the body will be found eventually. There’s no good reason to take the body away.’

‘Unless you know you left evidence of yourself on the body and you’re not sure you can clean it up.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘If Kate was raped before she died. Or after.’ I said it calmly, professionally, not allowing myself to imagine her pain, her fear, the moment when she realised she was going to die.

Derwent nodded. ‘There is that. She put up a hell of a fight, by the looks of things.’

‘But it wasn’t enough.’

‘Not this time.’ He turned away abruptly and I wondered if he was thinking about Melissa, who had been attacked over and over again by her handsome husband. Some cases were too close to home, for both of us.

We could have taken the shortcut to Harold Lowe’s house – through the bloody hallway at number 27, across the garden, through the gate and down the alley – but Derwent wanted to take the long way round, by road, in my car, which would take a couple of minutes. It seemed like unnecessary hassle to me but I went along with it. The only way to survive working with Derwent was to pick your battles.

‘Is it the house?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘Kate Emery’s house. Does it bother you? The blood?’

‘Nah.’ He leaned back in the passenger seat, folded his arms and closed his eyes. ‘Drive slower.’

‘Seriously? You usually complain about how slowly I drive.’

‘I’m tired.’

‘Well, it’s not naptime.’

His answer was a snore. I hit the brakes a bit harder than I needed to at the next junction and he startled awake, his hands flying up.

‘What?’

‘Why are you sleeping?’

‘Because I’m knackered.’ He did look tired, I thought, with shadows under his eyes that weren’t usually there. ‘Thomas hasn’t been sleeping well.’

‘He has to get used to the new house.’

‘It’s not that. He’s been having nightmares. Night terrors, actually.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘It’s like sleepwalking except he’s in bed. Screaming.’ He shivered. ‘It’s fucking creepy. He can be sitting there with his eyes open, shouting at the top of his voice about monsters and people chasing him, and there’s nothing you can do to comfort him. He doesn’t even know you’re there.’

‘What does Melissa think?’

‘She wants to take him to see a sleep specialist.’ He sighed. ‘I think she’s overreacting but I can’t say that, can I? He’s not my kid. Google says it’s normal at Thomas’s age.’

I pulled up outside Lowe’s house, on the road. The high beech hedge screened the front of the house completely from anyone walking past. ‘What did you say he screams about? Monsters?’

‘Monsters, baddies, someone watching him, you name it. I put the light on to show him there’s no one there but he’s not conscious really, so he doesn’t register it. You have to wait for him to calm down by himself and go back to sleep and it takes hours.’ He yawned so widely I heard his jaw crack. ‘It’s happening two or three times a night. And in the morning he doesn’t remember any of it.’

‘Maybe moving house will sort it out.’

‘Maybe. The flat was too small for the three of us. That didn’t help. But Melissa thinks it might make it worse. He’s had a lot of disruption in the past year.’

‘Yeah, but with a happy ending. He got away from his dad, didn’t he?’ Mark Pell had beaten and intimidated his wife until she took Thomas and ran away to London, to what should have been a safe place. It wasn’t her fault that it had turned out to be the opposite.

Derwent nodded soberly. ‘That could be part of the trouble, though. He must miss his dad. Melissa never let him see any of the violence. He didn’t know about her injuries. As far as he’s concerned, his mummy and daddy loved each other very much and then Mummy took him away. Daddy disappeared out of his life from one day to the next.’

‘But you’re there.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Isn’t it? He adores you, you know that.’

Derwent put a hand up to his eyes, rubbing at them with his forefinger and thumb. ‘Fuck’s sake. I’m not crying. My eyes are watering because I’m tired.’

‘Yeah, of course. I think we drove past someone chopping onions, actually. That’s probably it.’

‘Don’t take the piss,’ he mumbled.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘I want to look after him. That’s all. And I don’t know how to make it better for him.’

‘It’s a phase.’

Derwent squinted at me. ‘What do you know about it?’

‘That’s what my brother says about every annoying thing his kids do. Everything’s a phase. In a month’s time he’ll be sleeping beautifully and you’ll have something else to worry about.’

He thought about it. ‘Thanks, mate.’

‘Any time.’ I got out of the car and looked up and down Constantine Avenue. The houses were detached, set back from the road and there were no pedestrians. It was quiet, and private. ‘This is going to be rubbish for witnesses.’

‘Come on.’ Derwent led the way through the gate and paused to scan the gravel in front of the house. ‘What do you think? Tyre marks?’

‘None to speak of.’ I crouched down, trying to see. ‘Nope. There isn’t enough gravel for that.’