Scared to Death: A gripping crime thriller you won’t be able to put down

‘What have we got, Gold?’ Callan asked as he reached him.

‘A dead soldier,’ Gold muttered, his navy-flecked, royal-blue gaze meeting Callan’s insouciantly. A beat later, he added a reluctant ‘sir’ and followed it with a disinclined salute.

Callan returned the salute smartly, though he was more tempted to use his right hand to smack Gold around the head. He knew that it would take all his willpower not to wring the jumped-up little shit’s neck on this case, suspected that Colonel Holden-Hough, Officer Commanding Southern Region, Special Investigation Branch, knew the same, which is why he had been given Gold as his detachment second-in-command in the first place.

‘Who?’ Callan snapped.

‘A trainee, Stephen Foster.’ Gold flipped open his notebook. ‘Aged sixteen.’

‘What was he doing out here?’

‘Guard duty.’

‘Alone?’

Gold shook his head. ‘With a female. Martha Wonsag.’

‘So where the hell was she when he died?’

Gold shrugged. ‘I haven’t got that far yet, sir.’

‘Where is the rest of the guard detachment?’

‘They’re back on normal duties.’ He held up the notebook. ‘I have their names.’

‘What?’ Callan stared at him, incredulous. ‘This is most likely a murder inquiry and the victim’s guard detachment will be top of our list of suspects. Secure a suite of rooms and get the guard rounded up and isolated now. Do not leave them alone for a second, and do not let them talk to each other. I’ll start interviews when I’ve looked at the crime scene.’

His jaw tight with anger, Gold nodded. ‘Right, sir.’

Turning away, feeling the heat of Gold’s fury burning into his back, biting down on his own anger – anger at himself for having been unavailable when the call about a suspicious death came through, at Gold for his incompetence, knowing that a significant part of his anger was fuelled by dislike – Callan climbed into a set of overalls and ducked under the crime scene cordon. Morgan’s SOCOs fell silent as he approached, and he knew what they were thinking. He was famous, or more accurately infamous, in the Special Investigation Branch. Only thirty, eight years in, and he had already taken two bullets whilst on duty. The first a gift from the Taliban eighteen months ago in Afghanistan, still lodged in his brain; the fallout, permanent seizures, manageable at the moment with drugs, his neurologist had told him this morning, but likely to worsen with time. The second, a bullet in the abdomen from a fellow soldier four months ago, in woods not unlike these. He’d only been back on duty for two weeks. He knew that he was well respected in the Branch for being brave and professional, and found it unnerving. How opinions would change if his colleagues found out about his epilepsy and the demons that infested his mind at night. What he was feeling now, walking into this dense, shadowy copse of trees. Déjàvu.

‘Sir.’ Morgan straightened as Callan reached him. At five foot eight the top of his head barely grazed Callan’s shoulder.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Morgan.’

‘I’m glad you’re here, too, Captain.’ A gentle Welsh valleys accent, unmellowed by his decades-long absence from the Rhondda. He was the son of a coal miner, had faced only three life choices: unemployment, life down a pit, or the Army. He had chosen the Army and escape and was a career soldier, experienced and capable, with a degree of cynicism gained over twenty-five years in the Redcaps, that meant he was no longer surprised by any crime that the dark side of human nature could conjure up. ‘My patience was wearing thin with Little Lord Fauntleroy over there.’

With his stocky frame, steel-grey hair and clipped moustache, he reminded Callan of a solid grey pit pony.

‘May I take the liberty of saying that you look like shit, sir,’ Morgan continued. ‘Big night?’

‘Thanks for your honesty, Sergeant. I feel like shit too.’ Scratching a hand through his dirty blond stubble, he stifled a yawn. Branch detectives wore plain clothes most of the time and though he had changed out of his muddy shirt and jeans into a navy-blue suit he kept in the boot of his car for emergencies, he hadn’t been able to do anything about his pasty complexion or his bloodshot eyes.

‘Well, you’re going to need a strong stomach for this one.’

Callan looked where Morgan indicated, taking in the salient details quickly, freeze-framing each segment of the tableau in turn, acclimatizing himself mental snapshot by mental snapshot. In a few moments, he knew that he would have to pick over the scene, the corpse of the kid in forensic detail with Morgan and he wasn’t sure that his mind or his stomach were up to it.

‘He hasn’t been moved?’

Morgan raised an eyebrow.

‘Sorry. Stupid question.’ Callan squatted, taking care not to step too close to avoid contaminating the scene. He could feel his heart beginning to race, took a couple of deep breaths to slow it. The boy was slumped at the foot of a huge oak tree, tilted sideways, like a rag doll that had been propped in place, then slid off centre. His head was lolling on to his chest, dark brown eyes open, staring, and already showing the milky film of death, the tree’s leaves making a dappled jigsaw of his bloodless face. He had been handsome in life, and young – fuck, he was young. He looked like a fresh-faced schoolboy who’d been playing soldiers – youplaydeadnow – except that this victim wasn’t the product of any game. The bloody puncture wound in his throat and the tacky claret bib coating the front of his combat jacket told Callan that this crime scene was all too real.

‘Stab wound to the throat?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Weapon?’

‘A screwdriver.’

‘Where is it?’

‘I’ve bagged it.’

‘Was it still in his throat?’

‘No, it was eight metres away. Here.’ He indicated one of the numbered markers. ‘The tip was dug into the ground, the handle sticking up at forty-five degrees.’

‘Thrown?’

Morgan nodded. ‘Without doubt.’

Shifting closer, Callan studied the stab wound in the boy’s throat.

‘It doesn’t appear to be a vicious blow,’ he heard Morgan say.

‘No.’

There didn’t appear to be any trauma around the wound, no damaged skin or bruising. It was as if the screwdriver had slid in gently, finding the pliable gap between two cartilaginous ridges in the trachea, nothing unduly violent, no loss of control or wild ferocity about this death. Even the expression on the kid’s face showed no fear, merely an odd, chilling sense of calm.

A camera’s flash and Callan straightened, shielding his eyes from the blinding white light. The last thing he needed was another epileptic fit.

‘You OK, sir?’

‘Sure. I just need a coffee and ten hours’ sleep. I’ll leave you to it, Morgan.’

He suddenly wanted out of this wood. There was something about the denseness of the trees, the constant shifting of shadows as the wind moved the branches, and the smell – damp bark and leaf mulch – that catapulted him back to Sandhurst, back to that night in the woods when Major Nicholas Scott, the father of Jessie Flynn’s deeply traumatized four-year-old patient, Sami, had shot him in the back, when he had nearly died for the second time in his life. Jesus,Ben – he took a breath, trying to ease the pressure in his chest – focusonthefuckingcase. Stephen Foster, a sixteen-year-old kid, five months in the Army and already dead. There’d be hell to pay for this one.

10 (#ulink_9939df71-dc7e-5ff7-818b-7cc122768a5d)

The room Jessie and Marilyn entered was small and airless. Scuffed baby-pink walls, a burgundy cotton sofa backed against one wall, two matching chairs facing it, a brightly coloured foam alphabet jigsaw mat laid in the middle of the vinyl floor, each letter fashioned from an animal contorting itself into the appropriate shape – an ape for ‘A’, a beetle for ‘B’, a cat for ‘C’. The air stiflingly hot, even though someone had made an effort to ease the pressure-cooker atmosphere by opening the window as far as its ‘safety-first’ mechanism would allow. A fly, seeking escape, circled by the window, cracking its fragile carapace against the glass with each turn.

A chubby, blond-haired baby boy in a white T-shirt and pale blue dungarees was sitting in the middle of the mat, smacking the handset of a Bob the Builder telephone against its base. An elderly lady – late seventies, Jessie guessed – tiny and reed thin, was perched on the edge of the sofa watching the baby. Her hands, clamped on her knees, were threaded with thick blue veins, her skin diaphanous and liver-spotted with age. She had dressed for a formal occasion in a grey woollen tweed skirt, grey tights and a smart white shirt, the shirt’s short sleeves her only visible concession to the day’s unforeseen heat. Her brown lace-ups were highly polished, but the stitching had unravelled from the inside sole of one, the sole cleaving away from its upper.

Starting at the sound of the door, she looked over, her face lighting briefly with a sentiment that Jessie recognized as hope, half rising to her feet before collapsing back, the light dimming, when she realized that it was no one she knew.

‘Mrs Lawson, I’m Detective Inspector Bobby Simmons and this is my colleague, Doctor Jessica Flynn.’