Redemption of the Dead: A DI Sean Corrigan short story

Redemption of the Dead: A DI Sean Corrigan short story
Luke Delaney

A chilling short story taking us back to DI Sean Corrigan’s days as a newly minted detective from Luke Delaney, ex-Met detective and author of Cold Killing. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, Peter James and Stuart MacBride.1993. The Parkside Rapist has been terrorising the women of South London, and Detective Chief Superintendent Charlie Bannan is in need of a secret weapon if he’s going to catch this particular monster.When fresh-faced PC Sean Corrigan is transferred to join the team, Bannan immediately spots his potential. Soon Sean will find himself exploring the scars his own dark past has left him in the race to help his new mentor catch their quarry before he goes on to commit more, and worse crimes…

Redemption of the Dead

Luke Delaney

Copyright (#ulink_9f0f59cd-3c8b-5478-a212-e7e970149a93)

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

Copyright © Luke Delaney 2013

Cover photography © Henry Steadman

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013

Luke Delaney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Extract from Cold Killing © Luke Delaney 2013

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This 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 ebook 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 ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content or written content has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007486151

Version: 2017-10-17

Table of Contents

Title Page (#u1d8b83f7-c09a-531a-a1ea-8c51f1352d91)

Copyright (#ucd830e68-9bda-5dc1-8ade-1598be9db181)

Chapter One

October 1993 (#ulink_6ce058c4-3e87-58c9-b80c-3208b30db7ba)

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Two Weeks Later (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Two Days Later (#litres_trial_promo)

Three Weeks Later

Epilogue

November 2004 (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Read on for an extract of Cold Killing, Luke Delaney’s debut novel featuring DI Sean Corrigan.

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also By Luke Delaney (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One (#u591d2fe2-3e1d-5f68-9e00-37ba61873f4c)

October 1993 (#ulink_349fc14f-17bb-5012-a61e-679d31b19325)

She pulled her coat tight against the chill of the approaching winter, but still she felt a shiver run the length of her body, some terrible feeling refusing to leave her. She comforted herself with the fact that the sun was high overhead and that she’d seen several other people walking in the same park in Hither Green, south-east London, but still the feeling remained of some nearby malevolent force – watching. Waiting. She leaned inside the buggy and adjusted her young child’s clothing, smiling and softly chatting as she did so, but constantly flicking her eyes from left to right. An increasing sense of panic made her hurry as she grabbed the buggy handles and began to walk towards the exit of the park, the wooded area on her left suddenly dark and threatening.

She stuck to the path, walking so fast she was almost jogging, until the sight of another mother with her two children playing on the grass no more than a hundred metres away began to calm her fears and she slowed her pace. A small smile spread across her face as she reprimanded herself for her foolishness. She took a few deep breaths to chase away the remainder of her panic and headed towards one of the park’s exits.

First all she heard was the rustling sound of branches being pushed out of the way and the breaking of twigs under foot. He moved so fast she didn’t have time to react – not even to scream as he burst from the woods and stood in front of her, his chest rising and falling as fast as her own, his eyes as full of fear and panic as her own. She felt her lungs involuntarily filling with air as she prepared to scream, but he saw her body’s intention and leaped forward, the huge combat knife pressing hard enough to her throat to draw blood.

His voice was full of terror and excitement. ‘If you make a sound I’ll cut your throat – I swear I’ll cut your throat and then I’ll cut your baby’s. Understand?’ She managed to nod as the madman slid around to her back and gripped her by the hair while keeping the knife at her throat, pushing her forwards now, away from her child and into the waiting trees.

* * *

A thin layer of dark red blood sprayed across his face as he drove his fist into the deepening cut above the man’s right brow. As the man staggered backwards he nimbly pursued him across the slightly springy floor, waiting for a chance to further punish the cut, but the man was using both fists and forearms to protect his face, making it almost impossible to hit him. He swallowed his rising anger and tried to stay in control, knowing that if he allowed the fury inside of him loose he would struggle to rein it back in. He had to control it – use the tools he’d been given to harness the aggression, but control the fury. He bent slightly at the knees and began to pound the man’s ribs and the kidneys that tried to hide behind them, powering his right fist into the man’s side, then his left, swiveling at the hips as he constantly shifted his body weight to maximize the impact of each punch. Finally the man could bear the pain no more and was forced to drop his arms to his sides for protection, leaving his face and the cut exposed. Instantly he sensed the man’s mistake, his body slightly straightening and rising as he channeled every ounce of power into his left fist that hooked and flashed through the air, tearing into the cut above the man’s brow. Heavy droplets of maroon blood danced into the sky before splashing on a group of drunken, baying men standing nearby, making them curse and cheer together. A savage right fist parted the man’s elbows and hands as it travelled towards his exposed chin, crashing into the jawbone and rocking his head backwards and at last he collapsed to the floor, blood from his ruptured brow seeping to the surface and pooling under the side of his head. A man in black trousers and a bloodstained white shirt, adorned with an oversized bowtie stepped in front of the stricken man, protecting him from his assailant, furiously waving his arms to warn everyone that the fight was over.

The victor was ordered into a neutral corner of the boxing-ring, forcing himself to retreat from the man lying at his feet, fighting his instinct to finish his adversary once and for all, to eliminate him as a possible risk forever, cursing the padded gloves that cramped his hands and lessened the impact of his blows – deprived him of the pleasure of feeling the man’s skin breaking over his knuckles – blood staining his hands in victory. The rules of the ring had given him some control over the ugly demons that beat in his chest, but when he was in a fight and had his quarry run to ground he cursed their restrictions and confinement. ‘Get up,’ he muttered through his gum-shield. ‘Get up.’ He wasn’t finished with the man on the floor – wasn’t finished punishing him for crimes he hadn’t committed – wasn’t finished beating the man in the same way he’d beaten his own father in his dreams – wasn’t finished seeking redemption and revenge for his own tortured childhood. But the man in the shirt and bowtie waving his arms told him the fight was indeed over – at least the one in the ring.