It’s bad when the girls go missing.

It’s worse when the girls are found.

Six months ago, Charlotte almost lost everything. Now, she’s determined to keep her daughter, Elle, safe. So when local girls close to Elle in age and appearance begin to go missing, it’s her worst nightmare.

Charlotte’s fears are confirmed when a frantic search becomes a shocking murder investigation. The girls’ bodies have been found – half-buried, and with traces of mud and wildflowers under their fingernails.

As Charlotte’s obsession with keeping her daughter close pushes her marriage to the brink, local DI Madeleine Wood embarks on a gruelling search for the killer. And, as they dig deeper into the lives of the people they call friends and neighbours, they uncover secrets more terrible than they ever imagined . . .

Pretty Little Things is the nail-bitingly terrifying new serial-killer thriller from T.M.E. Walsh – the perfect read for fans of Close to Home, Behind Her Eyes and The Child

Also by T.M.E. Walsh

The DCI Claire Winters series:

For All Our Sins

The Principle of Evil

Trial by Execution

Pretty Little Things

T.M.E. Walsh

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © T.M.E. Walsh 2018

T.M.E. Walsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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

This novel 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 e-book 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.

E-book Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 978-0-00-823892-6

Tania (T.M.E.) WALSH began writing full time after becoming a casualty to the recession in late 2008 and pens dark and raw twisty thrillers.

She successfully self-published the first two novels in the DCI Claire Winters series before being picked up by HQ – a division of HarperCollins – in 2015.

Tania is currently working on a fourth book in the DCI Claire Winters series with plans for another standalone thriller to follow her latest novel, Pretty Little Things.

In 2011 Tania was the winner of the Wannabe a Writer Blurb competition sponsored by Writing Magazine and judged by Matt Bates, the Fiction buyer for WHSmith Travel.

Tania has previously produced digital artwork that was published on a DVD-ROM for ImagineFX magazine’s FXPosé section twice in the early and latter part of 2007, which has been published worldwide.

Tania lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and young daughter.

For the latest information on T.M.E. Walsh, you can follow her on Twitter @tmewalsh, or visit her website www.tmewalsh.com and Facebook page www.facebook.com/tmewalsh

For Team Walsh.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Prologue

Part 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Part 2

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Part Three

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Letter from the Author

Excerpt

Endpages

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

ANON

It’s the blood that gets to you first. It’s messy, gets everywhere. Under your nails, in each line, every crevice. It’s a bitch to clean. It’s practically impossible to remove. No matter how much you scrub, on hands and knees, sponge in hand, if you look hard enough, you’ll find a trace.

That’s why I’m careful about where I do it, where I make the final cut, where I end it all.

It’s in a cabin in the woods.

I know what you’re thinking – cliché? Am I right? OK, sure, I can see why you’d think that. Frankly, I don’t care what you think. I never set out to be original. This life chose me. I’m not a product of my environment.

I was born like this.

Now, isn’t that a scary thought?

So . . . the blood.

After the blood, comes the elation. That feeling of pure ecstasy, running through your veins – at least, that’s what it’s like for me. Each of us is different. Someone else like me might tell it differently. One thing we all have in common, though, is the knowledge that we can’t stop.

Doesn’t matter how many times I hear an innocent beg me to spare their life. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear them cry, or scream, or feel them lash out, trying in vain to fight me off.

No, it doesn’t matter.

The result is the same every time.

They are dead and I’m riding that euphoric wave I can’t ever find the words to describe accurately.

They are dead . . . or they are dying.

Like this bitch is right now, her body twitching under my weight. There’s no sound except for the gurgling as her blood gushes out, bright-red, arterial spray decorating the plastic sheeting I’ve pinned up around the walls and floor of the cabin.

Her name is Bryony Keats.

She’s just celebrated her seventeenth birthday. She didn’t listen to her mother about getting into cars with strangers.

*

How many? I’m not sure I can rightly say. It’s either three or four. Reason why I say it’s possibly four depends on how you look at it.

Number four had a fucking asthma attack midway through it all, which, frankly, spoilt the whole thing for me, it really did.

Did she die because of me? Well, yes and no. I’m sure her body wouldn’t have gone into overdrive had I left her alone. BUT, she had asthma – an underlying health problem.

Properly managed, she could have lived another fifty-plus years. So, I can’t take complete ownership of it.

Mother Nature played her part.

She could just as easily have had a fatal attack next week, next month, next year . . . had she not fallen into my path.

Her name was Katie. Pretty sweet little thing she was. She was my youngest, about fifteen. Just.

Young.

Did I mention that I like them young? Well, youngish – I’m not a total monster – but I do get off on that sweet smell of youth. The skin has to be soft to the touch, like a peach. Ripe fruit meant for tasting.

That first sweet bite.

It gets me every single time. That and the precious moment when the light, the life – everything that makes that person them – has slipped away.

Speaking of which, Bryony here has just left us.

Her legs under my weight have fallen still at last, and her nails have stopped trying in vain to claw my eyes out.

I’d kept my face out of harm’s way, head cocked to the side, just so, watching as she bled out.

*

I picked her up on a winding country road in the Chilterns, en route between the county of Buckinghamshire and Kennington, Hertfordshire, not to be confused with Kennington, London, not far from MI6 – I should be so-fucking-lucky – ’cos that’d be pretty cool.

I’d been out on one of the drives I like to do when not at work.

I can literally just drive for miles, with no real destination in mind, just enjoying where the roads take me.

Admittedly this means I can scope out the area, understand my limits, respect the boundaries I have to force on myself so I don’t get caught, but it’s a real pleasure.

A Sunday-morning drive is how I found the cabin in the woods.

It was an old site that used to hire out wood cabins to families, on a self-catering basis. It was supposed to be all about getting back to nature, immersing oneself in the woods, leaving the rat-race behind – that type of shit.

This place thrived in the nineties. Then we hit the noughties, and it went to the dogs under new management.

This place was soon forgotten. It’s not even on my satnav.

Completely isolated, forgotten, broken and unloved. Until I found a use for it.

Anyway, I digress.

So, Bryony . . .

She said she’d had her thumb stuck out for about thirty minutes before I stopped at the side of the road.

When she lowered her head to give me the once-over, her eyes did show a flicker of recognition.

I did the same. I was pretty sure I’d seen her somewhere before.

‘Where you heading?’ I’d asked.

‘Anywhere but here,’ she’d replied, breezily, not seeing me as a threat.

I asked her what she meant. She told me she’d had enough of her mother’s new boyfriend, and was running away. Then she dropped her rucksack on the backseat of the car, and climbed in beside me.

Just like that.

Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly . . .

I admit, my smile was beaming. Ear to ear.

Bryony – she told me her name, with a flick of her chestnut-coloured hair over her small shoulders – was beautiful.

‘Take me as far as you’re going,’ she said.

I felt duty-bound to oblige.

After some small talk, she said she needed a piss. With no services nearby, just narrow country lanes, I pulled over and she ran into the thick of some trees.

I knocked her unconscious with one blow to the back of the head with my heavy-duty torch (top tip, always be prepared) catching her mid-flow, jeans and knickers around her ankles.

Not my greatest or proudest moment, I’ll admit. Necessary, though.

After an initial struggle with her jeans, I got her in the boot, wrists and ankles bound tight.

When we got to the cabin, I waited about four hours before I caved in and killed Bryony, cutting her throat from ear to ear.

It was right after she said she knew where she’d seen me before.

She’d sealed her own fate right at that moment, because just before that I’d been in two minds about whether to let her go or not.

She was a runaway, and I can relate to that and the reasons why she was doing it. We had found some common ground, but then she went and ruined it for herself.

I still don’t quite understand what she had been saying to me – places she said she’d seen me – but she was scared shitless. I doubt many people make much sense when they’ve reached the limits of trying to control such obvious fear.

I look down at her now, at the blood on the plastic sheet. I stare into her glassy green eyes.

With her last ounce of strength, Bryony’s frightful stare had found mine, and her eyelids flickered.

Had that been a silent fuck you?

Too late to ask her now, but I like to think that’s what she meant. Even at the end she had a bit of fight left in her.

I eye the ring in her fleshy lower lip. That’ll have to come out. It’s about the only thing she has that I have considered keeping.

After I’ve carefully removed the little piece of silver, I press my hand, encased in surgical gloves, against her peach of a cheek. She’s going cold already.

Oh, Bryony. You tragic thing, you.

*

The cabin in the woods – isn’t that a film? – is about twenty-odd miles away from civilisation of any real kind, unless you count the wildlife – who, incidentally, can be a massive help if I want to dispose of smaller body parts.

There have been four girls before Bryony. Later, I’ll have them all moved to a different place, a wasteland about forty miles from where I live.

Then it’s just a matter of time before they’re found. I don’t think it’ll be long.

Bryony’s a bit different though. When I move them, I don’t want to leave her with the rest. She fought back more. She was in a different league.

I pick up my spade and go outside the cabin. The air outside is heavy with damp, but it’s mild enough.

I go to the back of the cabin and out towards the undergrowth.

I step over the four raised mounds of earth near the line of trees and begin to dig. Nothing fancy, or too deep, just enough like when you sow a row of seeds.

All I can hear, now the blood in my ears has stopped pounding, is the spade slicing through the soil.

It takes no time at all and I go back to get Bryony.

When I’m done, and have scattered a layer of soil over her, I take a few steps back and lean my weight against the spade.

I look at the five mounds of earth, from the bottom where their feet are, right up until I reach their faces.

Five bodies buried up to their necks, five faces left uncovered, looking skyward. They remind me of marble statues or the effigies you see adorning the top of a sarcophagus.

They are less than perfect, obviously. I can’t stop decomposition.

This is my garden, they are my seeds. Pretty things might grow here, even after they’ve gone, and join the sea of reds and pinks that are here already.

I head back inside, leaving the spade outside for later.

I go to the mirror on the cabin wall and take a moment to study my face.

So, there it is. This is me. What I do.

It’s a primal instinct. Something tuned in, buried deep, part of my DNA, never to be erased.

People write books on it – the reasons why people kill. Reality is, they’ve only just scratched the surface. They don’t know how deep down the rabbit hole it goes.

They don’t know about me.

As I said, it’s a primal instinct.

And that’s what makes me so dangerous.

PART ONE

Ring-a-ring o’ roses,

A pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down.

…We all fall down.

We all fall.

We. All.

Fall.

CHAPTER 1

CHARLOTTE

The taste of acrid smoke, like ash in my mouth.

This is what I always feel in that first waking moment after a nightmare.

The ashes in my mouth. That and the heat from the fire.

Since the accident it’s all I can think about when I shut my eyes at night.

I remember . . . I remember opening my eyes, seeing twisted and bent metal keeping me prisoner in the wrecked shell that was my old Citroën Xsara.

I say was, because in the immediate aftermath, from where I was lying, it didn’t resemble anything like a car.

I remember the heat of the fire, seeing the flames licking ever closer. I remember looking at twisted metal, torn upholstery and flames drawing dangerously close to the exposed fuel pipe.

It’s like I was in a daze. I couldn’t think about what I had to do next. I was, I guess, frozen in that moment, unable to move.

Then I was dragged out of what remained of my car by the man who had been in the vehicle behind mine. Assessing the damage, he knew I had maybe a minute before the car’s petrol tank exploded.

He’d cleared us to a distance of about thirty feet before the inevitable happened.

In one deafening explosion, the car was completely engulfed in flames, and I breathed a sweet sigh of relief that I was not burning to death.

It was a miracle I was alive or that things didn’t turn out worse considering my injuries. I suffered concussion, cuts, bruises, fractured ribs and a punctured lung, but the worst was my face . . .

I’d survived a collision with an HGV that had misjudged a bend in the road while coming from the opposite direction. The driver, Paul Selby, caught my car, crushing the side, and the force had spun me around before I came off the road, going through a fence and down an embankment. The car had flipped, rolling several times before coming to a standstill. Wreckage was strewn across the road I’d previously been driving on, and I was now stationary in a field.

Paul Selby was arrested for dangerous driving, using a mobile at the wheel and causing injury by dangerous driving. He got bail, but the court date is coming up and I can’t deny the stress has been getting to me of late.

I have to keep it all in perspective, though – or so I keep being told.

It’s a crash no one should have survived.

But somehow I did.

Six months on and I had used the time to reassess my life. Life is precious. Life can be taken as quickly as it can be given.

My daughter, Elle, is currently telling me she wants a car for her seventeenth birthday, which is in almost two weeks’ time.

I keep seeing that HGV and my insides do a somersault.

‘I’ll need driving lessons too. I can’t have a car just sitting there on the drive,’ she’s telling me.

I want to scream at her not to drive.

Ever.

It’s too dangerous and I just want to protect her. She’s my only child and what if it had been her in that crash? What if something like what happened to me, happens to her?

I grip hold of the tea towel I have been using to dry the dishes, and try to pull myself together. I’m being irrational. That’s what my Iain would say if he could hear what’s going on inside my head right now.

Because I’ve gone pale, quiet, she is now peering over her iPad, staring at me. I need to stall.

‘I don’t know, Elle, cars are expensive and—’

‘Dad said I could have lessons,’ she interrupts, anticipating my predictable response.

So much for a united unit, sharing the roller-coaster ride that is living with a teenager.

‘Well, Dad hasn’t discussed anything with me.’

‘Mum, I’m nearly seventeen.’

‘I never had a car at seventeen,’ I say, turning my back to her, busying myself with the drying up.

‘I need my independence.’

I turn to look at her. I know I’m biased, but my daughter is a beauty. She’s got long brown hair that brings out the colour of her bright-blue eyes. Her features are almost perfect and I know her classmates are envious because Elle’s blossomed early.

She’s looking at me now, eyebrow cocked, while playing with her necklace.

I stare at the pendant. It’s a green-enamel four-leaf clover. Iain and I got it for her sixteenth birthday. I remember thinking it was expensive at the time, but compared to a car . . .

Elle lets go of the pendant and gets up from her chair. Standing there in her skinny jeans and slouchy Nirvana top – which she’s only wearing because she thinks it’s fashionable, not because she thinks Kurt Cobain was a lyrical genius – she looks like she could pass for an adult already.

When did my daughter become so grown up?

She looks at me, hope in her eyes.

I’m about to speak but I hear Iain coming down the stairs. He comes into the room dressed in his usual work uniform.

‘How are my favourite girls?’ He comes over to me and, as he shoves dirty clothes into the washing machine, gives me a squeeze and plants a kiss on my cheek.

I immediately look to our daughter.

Iain frowns. ‘Have I just interrupted something?’

‘Mum says I can’t have a car for my birthday.’

I raise my eyebrows at him and he winces as he heads towards the coffee machine. ‘Elle, I didn’t promise anything,’ he says as he grabs a mug.

Elle’s face scrunches up. ‘Yeah, you did.’

He looks at me. ‘I really didn’t.’

‘Don’t lie,’ Elle says.

‘I said we would consider it.’

He says this to me, because apparently I need convincing. I hold my hands up. ‘You shouldn’t say anything without discussing it with me first.’

He looks sheepish.

‘Typical,’ Elle says under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear it. She busies herself with her iPad.

Iain watches my face and mouths a sorry. I face the sink. He is beside me again.

‘I didn’t think,’ he says in my ear and slips his arms around my waist.

‘You don’t think,’ I say. ‘That’s the problem.’

He frowns, eases his grip around me. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’

He stares at me until I look at him. He gives a shake of his head. ‘Not in front of her . . .’ he says and goes to the television on the other worktop and flicks it on.

The silence is punctuated with the sound of a commercial and Iain sips his coffee as he flicks through the channels.

‘What’s happened now?’

I don’t bother to turn my head to see what he’s talking about

It’s then that I hear the sound of the twenty-four-hour news programme.

‘I think they’ve found them.’

I hear the concern in his voice and now I do turn to pay attention to the TV screen, feeling as if my blood has turned to ice in my veins at what I see.

Live footage of an isolated wasteland fills the screen.

It’s early May.

Usually you’d see signs that spring is arriving, but not here. What little grass there is dotted around has grown in straggly brown tufts.

The old crumbling brickwork of an outbuilding lies off in the distance where there is a white incident tent erected. Figures – I can’t tell if they are male or female – are walking into the tent in identical white suits.

A reporter can be heard describing the scene before we see her, standing behind a police cordon, the tape vibrating against the wind sweeping in over the fields.

I hear the reporter’s words, but only snippets linger on in my head after she has spoken them.

Crude grave . . . pit . . . four bodies . . . female . . . decomposing . . . exposed to the elements . . .

My gaze drops to yesterday’s newspaper on the countertop, its edges curled. I stare at the headline.

Still Missing.

I touch the paper, turn it to face me. I look at their photographs, now filled with a deep sorrow.

I scan the headline again and the faces of each teen staring back at me, all smiles. So young.

My gaze lingers on the first girl who had gone missing, Caroline, aged just seventeen. She has been missing four weeks . . . and now, inside, my heart is aching. I know her mother, Ruth. I’d worked with her for years and we’d grown to be friends. When Caroline had first gone missing, we’d assumed she was fighting to be independent. Ruth and I had had many talks about how giving her space would lead her back to her mother when she was ready.

I think of all the words of comfort I’ve given her and feel like a fraud.

‘It’s going to take a while to ID them,’ Iain says. I look at him and his eyes meet mine. He shrugs. ‘Well, they say the soft parts are always the first to go.’

‘Eww,’ Elle says.

He must know what I’m thinking and immediately looks regretful.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Poor Ruth and Mike.’

I struggle to find any words. In this moment, all I can do is helplessly stare at the TV just as the reporter says unconfirmed reports suggest the police have every reason to believe these are the bodies of the missing girls.

Like we needed to hear that. I already knew. Things like this just don’t happen around here.

I think of Elle as a sharp twinge pulls at my insides. I feel the pain as if it were a personal loss to me. ‘God help their poor families,’ I say, snapping back into life.

Elle reaches for her drink. ‘This is yesterday’s news,’ she says between sips.

We both look at her. She shrugs.

‘Was on the internet late last night. It was a rumour going around Facebook.’

‘Elle,’ I say, ‘why didn’t you mention this?’

She shrugs again. ‘It was just a rumour then. And what’s that you’re always telling me? Don’t believe everything you see on social media?’

I look at her and remind myself that she’s soon to be seventeen, like Caroline. Three other girls will never see that birthday. I fight back tears as my mind takes me back to the day of the crash.

‘I should call Ruth.’

‘Is that such a good idea right now?’ Iain says.

‘She’s a friend and we know Caroline.’

Knew. Knew Caroline, I say to myself, and immediately feel wrong for thinking it.

‘Ruth and Mike are probably being inundated with calls and visits from the police and immediate family, Charlotte. They’ll be overwhelmed.’

‘All the more reason I should be there for her. For them both, her and Mike.’

Iain shakes his head. ‘I feel just as sad for them, as much as you do, but you’re not in their immediate circle of friends, Char.’ He looks at me with a degree of sympathy, but there’s something else there as well and I know he doesn’t want me to get too involved.

He’s right, I guess, but it feels wrong not to do anything.

I’ve helped Ruth on and off, just going out and driving around, searching. In the beginning, I helped stick up missing posters and went out walking with a group of Ruth and Mike’s friends, just to do something, to feel like there was still a chance Caroline would come back at any moment.

Then the second girl had gone missing. We didn’t know her or her family personally but we had seen them around the area.

It feels wrong not to try and salvage something positive out of this. Ruth couldn’t protect her daughter but I know I’ll do anything to protect mine.

I glance at Elle. Her eyes are glued to her iPad screen.

‘You’re not going to that party Friday,’ I say as I turn back to the sink.

Elle is naturally cross. ‘What?’ She looks at Iain. ‘Why?’ she bleats.

I turn, nod at the TV. ‘There’s someone out there killing girls your age, Elle.’ She rolls her eyes but I don’t care. ‘I need to know you’re safe and under my roof.’

‘Mum!’ Her brow is furrowed. ‘I’ll be, like, the only one not going.’

‘Kenzie isn’t going,’ I say.

Kenzie is Elle’s best friend and a bad influence on her – not that Iain agrees with me on that front.

Elle makes a face to silently ask me how I know that.

‘I saw her mother yesterday. She feels the same as me about these house parties.’

‘Her brother will be there.’

I scoff. ‘Oh, that’s a real comfort.’

Elle turns to her father then. ‘He’s eighteen, Dad, an adult.’

‘Barely,’ I say as Iain looks at me. If he doesn’t back me on this, I’ll bloody lose it. I’m tired of looking like the bad guy all the time. Lately I feel like this every day. It doesn’t help that Elle is now making puppy-dog eyes at me. She unfolds her arms and is now putting them around me.

‘I know you worry, Mum.’

Little bleeder. I love her to death, but she sure knows how to play me.

‘If I get a ride home with Jade’s mum, can I go?’

I frown, avoid her eyes. Still nothing from Iain.

‘Pleeeease, Mum?’

I look to Iain for help. I want him to say no and save me the moody silent treatment I’ll get for the rest of the weekend from Elle if I stand firm.

‘No,’ I say as I flick the television off. I can’t bear to see or hear any more right now. I feel Elle’s eyes on me just before she storms out of the room.

Iain sighs as he comes towards me. I let him hug me from behind as I stare out of the window. I can’t bring myself to look at him in case I break down.

‘Arguing with Elle isn’t going to help you,’ he says, resting his chin on my shoulder. ‘I know it’s hard with what’s going on around the villages, but we have to try and carry on.’

I suck in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t move out to the village to feel afraid,’ I say.

‘You’re saying you don’t feel safe here?’

‘It’s not about me feeling safe, Iain,’ I say, my hand now resting on his arm around my middle. ‘It’s always been about what’s best for Elle.’

I think back to the faces in the newspaper. The pixilated smiles of those teens. My heart could break for their parents.

I think of my own mother. I think of how my family was broken apart by a loss that I have never fully understood. All I know is how I will never take my eyes away from Elle, not like I used to.

This is something I fear Iain will never fully understand.

I know more than anyone the grief and fallout that comes from losing a child, no matter the circumstances.

We can hear Elle thundering around above us, the floorboards overhead creaking in protest.

Iain’s arm pulls away from me. He’s torn between staying with me and going to check on Elle.

‘I could drive Elle to this party and pick her up,’ he says. He moves away but watches me carefully. ‘She’ll be fine.’

I shrug. ‘How can you possibly know that? How can any of us?’

He looks at me, exasperated, but does his best to try and hide it. I know he’s trying to be supportive, but I also know I’m not the easiest person to placate right now.

He’s treating me like I’m glass, though, and that’s one thing I can’t stand. Being made to feel like everyone needs to tread carefully around me.

‘Elle is not Miles,’ he says. ‘She’s not any of these girls either.’

I shudder as he speaks Miles’s name.

‘This place is safe.’

‘What’s going on now—’

‘Stop obsessing about it,’ he snaps. ‘You’re going to lose Elle, if you’re not careful. Keep pushing and she’ll clam up completely. You have to let her live a little.’

I hold his stare now.

‘We did that once.’ I watch his face fall, now less assured of his own words. ‘You remember how that turned out?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, but I also remember the reasons behind it.’

He sees the hurt on my face.

‘I know it wasn’t your fault,’ he says, now coming towards me. ‘Besides, this is different.’ He looks deep into my eyes. ‘It’s just a party. Give her that little bit of freedom.’

I risk a glance at the newspaper again. Iain sees and shoves it in the bin. He avoids my eyes as he comes over and kisses me on the cheek.

‘The worst didn’t happen to you, Charlotte.’ He pats my arm, then leaves me standing there alone.

The worst didn’t happen . . .

I could have died in that crash. I didn’t. I could have been left with life-changing injuries. I wasn’t. I could have left my daughter without her mother. I didn’t. I’m here and all I can do is try to carry on as usual.

Easier said than done.

How do you completely come back from being so close to death? How can you just act like nothing’s happened? Iain suggested six months ago that I might need counselling.

I declined.

I don’t need a therapist to tell me what I already know.

I could have died – would have done, had I not been dragged from the wreckage. It’s freak events like that that make you question your own mortality, and that of the ones you love.

Is it any wonder I obsess about our daughter’s safety when there’s someone out there hurting girls our daughter’s age? Is it any wonder I put all my energy into protecting her, when I’ve seen this kind of pain before? Iain knows what happened to my brother when I was small. He knows what I saw with my own mother, and yet . . .

Carry on as usual, he says . . .

Easier said than done.

CHAPTER 2

Detective Inspector Madeleine Wood’s Tyvek paper suit rustled with each tentative step she took towards the incident tent.

She’d been warned what to expect by officers who had already been on the scene for several hours, since the initial call had come through.

A group of teens had taken a haul of alcohol and drugs up to the wasteland in the middle of the night, planning on making their mark on the world. In their heads, they’d thought they were making a stand against society, or some such rubbish.

Stumbling across a makeshift shallow grave in the dark had scared them shitless, and reduced them to crying wrecks, begging for their mummies.

Twisted limbs, flesh riddled with insects, and a smell that would stay with you no matter how many times you washed would do that to anybody, even if these teens were usually as hard as nails.

Madeleine tucked a few strands of long auburn hair that had worked loose from her ponytail back inside the suit’s hood.

‘Guv,’ said DC Braithwaite as she approached.

Madeleine nodded. ‘Charis.’

DC Charis Brathwaite looked as solemn as ever. Devoid of much emotion, she resembled Madeleine’s own mother – strong and silent, with an air about her that always gave the impression of being permanently pissed off with something or somebody.

Madeleine stopped beside Charis at the entrance to the incident tent, watching her pale face carefully, but she wasn’t giving much away.

‘What’s your gut telling you?’ she said.

She looked grim and pulled her face mask back over her chin. ‘It’s got to be them. Has to be.’

Madeleine swallowed hard.

She knew it to be true also, but part of her had still silently prayed she was wrong; that she wouldn’t be giving the news to heartbroken parents, their world now devoid of any hope of finding their child alive.

She took a deep breath and went inside.

There were four bodies in the grave in front of her. Four bodies in different stages of decomposition. Four bodies that were partially clothed; some feet missing shoes, socks . . . simple things that would have made them look more human.

One thing was for certain, though.

The four bodies were definitely female.

The missing girls had been found.

A formal ID would follow, but Madeleine knew it was them. Their names had been whittled down to just their first names in her head. That was all she needed to know. Names and ages. That was enough to make her determined to see justice done.

Caroline – 17.

Juliet – 16.

Melissa – 15.

Katie – 15.

Despite being used to crime scenes by now, some occasionally very brutal in nature, she still felt stirrings inside her that made her want to turn around, walk out of the incident tent and just keep on going, walking across the wasteland and never looking back.

‘It’s going to take a while to formally ID them,’ Charis said, swallowing hard.

Madeleine squatted down close to the pit. Seeing the bodies in situ was a necessity but it was a hard scene to take in and digest.

Casting her dark-brown eyes over the remains, she caught sight of wisps of copper-coloured hair, just poking out from beneath another body.

Madeleine’s thoughts were immediately drawn to the photograph of Juliet Edwards her parents had given to the police when she first went missing. It had been taken at her sixteenth birthday party. In the photograph, Madeleine had noted that, around a face that was still full, puppy-fat yet to be fully shed, Juliet had beautiful green eyes, complemented by a shade of hair that reminded Madeleine of the colour of autumn leaves.

Madeleine looked deeper into the crude grave and saw the willowy limbs and ash-blonde hair that she knew had to belong to Caroline White.

The side of Caroline’s face was only just visible but Madeleine could see one gold-star stud in her earlobe.

Madeleine knew those earrings had been given to Caroline by her mother the Christmas just gone. The enormity of what she was facing was starting to really hit home now she had the bodies of the young girls here in front of her.

‘Guv,’ Charis said, coughing, trying to clear the lump in her throat as she thought of her own daughter safe back at home with her mother-in-law. ‘We have some DCs doing rounds of house-to-house and specialist officers with the teens who found the . . . pit.’ She avoided using the word ‘grave’. This wasn’t worthy of being considered that.

Madeleine nodded a response but her attention was drawn to the forensic pathologist hovering in the corner of her peripheral vision.

Dennis Roach pulled his face mask down under his chin, although he was clearly reluctant to, given the scene around them.

‘It’s going to take time, as you might expect,’ he said, gesturing to the bodies. ‘There’s a lot of insect activity and there are various stages of decomposition . . . not to mention there’s been some dismemberment, likely from animal activity.’ He looked like he had a nasty taste in his mouth and Madeleine could more than relate.

This was a mess.

‘Understood,’ she said. ‘Too early to say, I suppose, but any indication on cause of death?’

Roach grimaced. ‘As you say, very hard to even gauge at this point but I can see signs of trauma to one of the victim’s necks, just here,’ he said, gesturing towards the nearest body.

Madeleine looked at the body lying on top of the rest, eyes open, face pointing skyward.

Katie Allen.

Madeleine knew it had to be her. She’d not long since pinned the girl’s photograph to the board in the incident room back at the station, maybe two weeks ago at most.

‘Her throat has been cut,’ Roach said.

Madeleine visibly jolted as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. Her eyes were drawn to a savage cut right across the girl’s neck, almost from ear to ear.

It looked deep, although it was hard to tell under the dried blood and grime.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness threatened to swallow Madeleine whole, right there and then.

She quickly left the tent.

*

After her suit had been taken and bagged up, Madeleine sat in her car, legs hanging out the door. Her face frozen, rigid, staring ahead at the cars and news vans that had turned up far beyond the police cordon.

Cameras rolling, reporters gesturing to the cameras, photographers with zoom lenses, vying for that perfect shot to sell on.

‘Is this what four young girls’ lives are worth, what they’ve been reduced to? A sideshow?’ Charis said as she approached the car. She looked back over her shoulder, sweeping back her long brown hair from her eyes as the wind picked up, howling across the wasteland.

‘Just doing their job,’ Madeleine said, voice drenched in sarcasm.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. What kind of monster do you have to be to do something like this?’

‘Monster? No,’ Madeleine said, shaking her head. ‘This person isn’t a monster. Monsters aren’t real, and besides, whoever did this doesn’t see themselves as a monster, villain or bogeyman.’

She swung her legs into the car and her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, knuckles white. ‘This person is the hero in their own story.’

‘Hero,’ Charis scoffed.

‘In their eyes.’

‘They won’t like how the media will portray them.’

‘I know,’ Madeleine said. ‘And that’s a problem. It could make the killer impulsive, more than they appear to be already.’

‘You think they could up the stakes?’

‘It’s what I’d do if I were the killer. They have some kind of message to send. If they feel they’re close to being caught, or being ridiculed . . .’ Madeleine clipped her seatbelt into the slot then turned to look up at Charis. ‘Where are we on that list of newly released sex offenders?’

‘Some have had visits but nothing of note so far.’

‘Violent offenders?’

‘One released in Luton, two weeks before Caroline went missing, but he has an alibi. CCTV confirms his whereabouts that Sunday.’

Madeleine cast her eyes over the wasteland, the desolate horizon towards the hills beyond. ‘You’d need a vehicle to bring the bodies here,’ she said. ‘The actual murder scene must be close.’

Charis nodded. ‘It’s mostly farmland out this way.’

‘Organise some officers to look around the farms, outbuildings, barns, that kind of thing.’ Madeleine’s mobile rang before Charis could respond. The caller ID display revealed it was DC Alex Farr.

‘Alex,’ she said, pressing her mobile to her ear.

‘Guv, I’ve had Mispers on the phone.’

Madeleine felt her insides knot and her mouth was immediately dry. She struggled to find her voice.

‘Shit,’ was all she managed, her voice low, but Charis, who was standing over her, drew closer, her face now paler than before.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Alex. ‘Another one’s been reported missing. Same age range, missing under similar circumstances.’

Madeleine’s body felt stiff. She ended the call and took a few deep breaths before remembering Charis was standing over her.

By the look on her face, Madeleine knew the other woman already understood.

‘Not another one?’ she said, the disbelief clear in her voice, wanting it desperately not to be so.

Madeleine nodded, and said, ‘Head back to Sutton House. Team brief in an hour.’

CHAPTER 3

Sutton House, home to Chiltern & South Bucks LPA, where Madeleine and her team were based, was a dull-looking, grey-brick building built in the mid-seventies.

The official main HQ for Thames Valley Police was in Amersham and Madeleine was part of the Major Crime Unit, the Force CID, which was made up of a number of smaller teams based in the local policing areas (LPA).

Being based at Sutton House rather than in the bigger hub of a town or city, Madeleine sometimes felt she was a little restricted and not always fulfilling her potential. Most crimes she had dealt with included robberies, home invasions and violent crime on occasion, but murder was rare.

Suddenly finding herself involved in a high-profile murder and missing persons investigation that was already fairly complex, she was feeling the pressure of the enormity of it all.

She was heading up a large team of people, and she knew you were only as good as your last case, your last success, in the eyes of her superiors. She wanted to obtain justice for the families that had been left destroyed by the events unfolding around them, but the thought of screwing up frightened her more than she’d realised it would.

She had been offered a small office, almost cupboard-like, but she’d declined it, preferring to be in the thick of things.

Right now, she was in the deep end, and silently prayed she wouldn’t drown.

Charis was sitting with DC Farr at the far side of the large, open-plan room, packed tight with desks and equipment, with a large board at the front that had a photograph of each victim pinned to it, with various information that had been collected, including key points like the date and time they had last been seen.

Madeleine stared at each photograph in turn and, as she had done many times before, each time a new photograph had been added, silently promised them she’d find them and bring them home again.

Now, though, she would be bringing them back to their parents only for them to have to bury them.

The weight of this was heavy on her mind, on her soul.

The fact that she’d just been handed another photograph to pin to the expanding board of information made her feel ill.

She tried to pull herself together. To keep herself focused and try not to absorb too much of the sadness playing out in front of them.

Young life cut brutally short, with another innocent likely to end up the same way if she and her team couldn’t find her in time.

‘Bryony Keats,’ she said, pinning a 10 x 8 photograph to the board as everyone came together to huddle around the large table in the centre of the room.

All eyes were now on the photograph of a petite teen wearing a jumper bearing the logo of the school she attended. Chestnut-coloured hair framed a face of delicate features, and flowed around her shoulders. A pretty, ornate, metal hair clip held back a section of hair from her face, revealing wide, dark, expressive eyes looking directly at the camera.

Although her mouth was pulled into a smile, it didn’t reach her eyes. Something Madeleine was more than conscious of.

‘Bryony is seventeen years old and lives in the village of Bronze Mead, just on the outskirts of Kennington. She’s a sixth-form student at Kings Hill Secondary School.’ She paused as she sat down at the far end of the table.

She then took a moment to look at her team.

‘Bryony’s been missing since last Wednesday.’

A collective silence fell over those gathered at the table.

‘As you’re already aware,’ Madeleine said, ‘the bodies of four young girls were found on the Heath Edge wasteland late last night by a group of teenagers. It quickly became apparent that they were the bodies of the four missing teens, although official identification will take a little longer due to the state of each body.’

She breathed out heavily.

‘To have the families formally ID the girls is out of the question. That’s the advice we’re being given.’

‘What do we know about Bryony Keats?’ Charis said.

Madeleine looked to Alex.

‘Bryony seems to be the average teenager. Nothing really stands out as suspect or particularly different about her or her home life,’ he said, looking at the file from Mispers. He rubbed his grey beard as he read through his notes. ‘We’ve already been collecting information on her social media accounts, bank records . . .’

He looked up at Madeleine and shook his head.

‘Her mother logged into the account online and there’s been no activity since the day she went missing when she drew out £200.’

‘So, we know the name and location of the cashpoint – there’ll be CCTV footage we can use. Alex, can you make that a priority?’ Madeleine said.

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Phone records too.’

He nodded. ‘On it.’

‘Why wasn’t Bryony reported missing sooner?’ Charis said.

‘Something we need to ask her mother, but it’s been noted that Bryony had threatened to leave before,’ Madeleine said. ‘She was definitely going somewhere. She took her rucksack and a change of clothes, deodorant, hairbrush, toothbrush.’

‘Given that, are we sure she isn’t just a runaway? She’d obviously planned to leave.’

‘I see your point,’ Madeleine said, ‘but she hasn’t been in contact with anyone. Her mobile is switched off, which is unusual in itself, and sadly, she fits the victim profile. We need a Family Liaison Officer over at her house ASAP and a search of her room. We need to seize any home PC, her laptop, any tablets, any other mobile phones.’

‘Do we know who the last person was to have contact with her?’

‘Her older brother texted her to ask if she was OK after an argument with their mother over her partner. Bryony stormed out.’

Madeleine wrote a few details down, before addressing the team.

‘All four of the girls were at surrounding schools. Caroline White and Juliet Edwards had part-time jobs in Kennington itself. We need to look again at all the victims’ social media, friends, boyfriends . . . What do they have in common? None of the girls knew each other, and nothing in their lives stands out as unusual, but what about Bryony Keats?

‘Pay close attention to social media. Just because we’ve found no connection between the girls in person doesn’t mean they didn’t interact, even in the smallest measure, via the internet. I know we’ve looked, but look again.

‘Similarly, with home life. Any problems at home or school? Check again. Something must connect these girls.’

‘All the victims were last seen before they went down country roads,’ Charis said. ‘I’ve already organised a check of nearby farms and any outhouses, stables.’

‘Good, and everyone who gave a statement when the girls were missing, I want re-interviewed.’ Madeleine looked further down the table at a few DCs. ‘HOLMES team,’ she said, ‘cross-reference everything.’

Madeleine set a few more tasks for people to do – more door-to-door, acquiring CCTV footage – before she began to wrap up the briefing.

‘Bryony’s been missing for four days now. Time is crucial.’

The room fell silent, each person more than aware what this could mean.

‘The more time that goes by since the last sighting of Bryony, the more we have to assume we’re looking for a body,’ Madeleine said, voicing what they were all thinking. ‘Given that we now have the bodies of four teenagers, we must assume that Bryony has been taken by the same person or persons, unless we have something concrete to suggest otherwise.

‘Bryony fits the victim profile; she’s in her mid to late teens, she lives in one of the surrounding villages where, as we know only too well, CCTV is limited along the country lanes. We do have one advantage, in that people who reside in small towns and villages tend to notice anything out of the ordinary. We need a fresh appeal for witnesses and I’ll be organising a press conference with the Chief Constable as soon as possible, but I can’t stress this enough: no one is to let slip anything to the media.’

Once the rest of the team dispersed, Madeleine called Charis and Alex into a small, stuffy interview room.

‘You guys are my eyes and ears more than anyone right now,’ she said, looking at each one of them in turn, making sure they understood how the pressure to get speedy results was weighing on her mind.

Alex’s dark-blue eyes looked sideways at Charis. ‘Guv,’ he said, his attention back on Madeleine. ‘Maddy . . . we have your back here. Everyone does.’

Madeleine smiled, but it was weak. Alex was in his early fifties and had a lot of experience, but he’d never wanted to progress to a higher rank. She’d always supposed it was because he didn’t want the axe to fall on his head should an investigation go wrong, as they’d all seen happen before.

Reality was, as Madeleine had come to realise, Alex wanted to remain a DC not through lack of ambition but because he wanted to help the families left destroyed by serious crime. The closer you got to the top, the less time you spent doing the groundwork.

The interaction with the families was key for him, Charis too.

It’s what kept them all focused.

‘No one wanted this investigation,’ Charis said. ‘Remember, you’re the one who stepped up when no one else would.’

Madeleine gave her a smile. ‘It’s my head if we get this wrong.’

‘We won’t,’ Alex said.

Madeleine blew out a long breath and shook her head. ‘Something about this whole case is off. It’s someone local, has to be. The locations, the timings . . . it all seems so random, desperate, like the killer has an insatiable need.’

Charis put her hand out and rested it on her shoulder. ‘We’ll find Bryony Keats alive, Guv. We will.’

Madeleine admired the optimism but the truth was, she knew in her heart that Bryony was almost certainly dead already.

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