About the Author
The heat pressed against her face.
On it. In it. Her cheeks felt like they were burning inside as well as out.
The little boy stood motionless beside her, his scorched pyjama bottoms trailing the pavement. His dark unblinking eyes stared up at the leaping flames erupting from the upper floor, then his attention turned to the bedroom window.
At the man screaming there.
She watched too, unable to drag her gaze away.
The man’s face seemed oddly distorted; like the famous painting she’d seen once: The Scream, wasn’t it? He banged against the windowpane, his mouth opening in a large O shape. The howl coming from the dark hole didn’t sound human. His hands were either side of his dripping face. Was it melting?
He disappeared from view.
The boy’s small hand slipped into hers. She snatched it away, and finally turned from the burning scene to look down at him.
‘What have you done?’
Monday 5 June
‘All right, Miss. Didn’t think I’d bump into you on the outside.’
Connie froze, the voice behind her instantly cooling the blood in her veins, despite the morning’s warmth. Her head dropped involuntarily, her bobbed, black hair falling forwards, creating a curtain on either side of her blanched face. She could pretend she hadn’t heard, carry on walking, but if she ignored him he might follow her. Slowly, she turned to face him.
The man – wiry, thin from heroin addiction – leant against the wall adjacent to the train station entrance, cigarette in mouth, his eyes squinting through a cloud of smoke.
A thin wisp of air expelled from Connie’s lungs and pushed its way through her pursed lips. Her shoulders relaxed a little. It was only Jonesy. She could cope with him.
‘Oh, hello, Jonesy. How are you doing?’ Connie instantly regretted the open question. She gave an exaggerated look at her watch, then smiled, hoping he’d get the message that she was in a rush.
‘Well, you know how it is, Miss. It ain’t easy, they got me on a short leash, like – but it’s better than being in that shithole I s’pose.’
Connie raised her eyebrows. She was inclined to agree with the last part.
‘What you doing with yourself now you’ve left, Miss?’
She hadn’t expected that question. How did he know?
‘Oh, well … I’ve gone for a change in direction.’ She turned away from him, her attention shifting to the small group of people heading into Coleton station, the low hum of their early morning conversation drifting on the air. She wished she could slide in step with them, get away from Jonesy quickly. She didn’t want to give him any details about her new job, or get into an awkward conversation. He might have done his time, but someone who’d been convicted of aggravated burglary wasn’t a person she particularly wished to converse with right now. She checked her watch again. ‘I’ve got to go; I’m going to miss the train. Sorry.’
‘Ah. Okay.’ He shrugged, his voice clipped. ‘Another time, then.’
Connie hoped not. ‘Good luck, though.’ She turned and walked towards the entrance.
‘They were wrong, you know,’ Jonesy said, his voice carrying after her. ‘To treat you like that. It wasn’t just your fault.’
Her steps ceased for a few seconds, then, without turning back, she ascended the stairs to the platform, her heels clicking rapidly on the metal.
Her heartbeat matched her footsteps.
As murder locations went, this was up there with the ones categorised as ‘unusual’. Detective Inspector Lindsay Wade had seen bodies dumped in all manner of places, and wasn’t easily rattled. This case didn’t have the shock factor in terms of it being off the wall, or weird – it was that the body was clearly meant to be found. Already this had put a bad taste in her mouth, and a cramp in her stomach. The killer wanted people to know, wanted the press coverage, the limelight. Murders like this were usually thought out, planned. And they also didn’t tend to be one-offs. These were the alarm bells ringing in Lindsay’s mind as she and Detective Sergeant Mack turned off the road in the dark blue Volvo Estate and on to the driveway leading to HMP Baymead, the local prison four miles outside of the market town of Coleton.
‘How long ago did uniforms get here, Mack?’
Fifty-two-year-old Charlie Mack had always been known simply as ‘Mack’ even at school. No one used his forename, bar his mum. Humming an unrecognisable tune, he flicked through his black pocket notebook. ‘The first got here at 7.35. Call came in from the Operational Support Grade in charge of the front gate at 7.20. Said he’d heard the screeching of tyres, saw a white, unmarked transit van drive at speed back up the road leading out of the prison. Thought it was just some idiot messing around; with the driveway being accessible to anyone, he said they often get vehicles that aren’t official – not relating to employees – coming in and out. There’s also a public footpath that runs along the top of the grounds, popular with dog walkers apparently.’
‘Christ, you’d think it’d be more difficult to get to, more secure.’
‘Yeah, but it’s a cat C prison, out in the sticks. The fencing is high enough, and it’s not like you’re going to get some nutter trying to scale it, in or out, not with that roll of wire on the top.’ DS Mack motioned out the car window at the perimeter fencing as they drove by. The red-brick walls of the prison buildings could be seen beyond the fence. The site had been used as an army camp in the run-up to World War Two. The buildings were now a mix of old and new, with a new larger cell block being more visible
