For Reasons Unknown

MICHAEL WOOD

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

Killer Reads

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Michael Wood 2015

Michael Wood asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

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

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, down-loaded, 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-books

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780008158668

Version 2020-01-23

To Mum

Thank you. For everything, thank you.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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

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

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Read on extract from The Hangman’s Hold

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue

It could have been any sitting room in any house throughout the country but it wasn’t. It was a room in the middle of South Yorkshire Police HQ, designed to give a relaxed, homely atmosphere. From the outside, it looked friendly and inviting, but if walls could talk they would tell a different story. Here, parentless children were comforted; victims of rape and sexual abuse were given tea and sympathy; and elderly victims of brutal crimes were consoled by fresh-faced WPCs with soothing tones and a never-ending supply of tissues.

Sitting on the floor was a blond, blue-eyed eleven-year-old boy dressed in a grey tracksuit that didn’t belong to him. He was surrounded by blank sheets of paper and an array of wax crayons, coloured pencils, and felt-tip pens. Squatting next to him was a young PC, who, against orders from his superiors, had not changed out of uniform.

The door opened and in walked Dr Sally McCartney. Unlike the PC, she had softened her appearance. Gone were the severe ponytail and conservative jacket. She had removed her glasses and suffered the anxiety of touching her eyes to put in contact lenses. She shot the PC a look of indignation. He could have at least taken off his uniform jacket.

‘Hello Jonathan,’ she said. The young boy didn’t look up from his drawings. ‘My name is Sally. I’ve come to have a chat with you if that’s all right?’

He continued to scribble on the paper. Sally McCartney knelt down to his level and looked over his shoulder. He had drawn a house and was colouring in a large tree next to it.

‘Is this your house?’

Jonathan nodded.

‘It’s very nice. That’s a lovely tree too. Do you climb it?’ No reply. ‘Which room is yours?’

He pointed to the top right window with the blue curtains, then went back to colouring in the tree.

‘Is the room next to yours your brother’s?’

He nodded again.

‘Jonathan, we’ve been looking for your brother but we can’t seem to find him. Do you know where he might be?’

Jonathan stopped drawing and looked up as if in thought. He looked across to Dr McCartney and fixed her with an expressionless stare, then returned his attention back to his drawing.

‘Jonathan, we need to find your brother. It’s very important. Do you know any of his friends?’

The door opened and Detective Sergeant Pat Campbell popped her head into the room. She looked haggard, having been on duty for more than twenty hours. She signalled for Dr McCartney to join her in the corridor.

‘Why didn’t that PC change out of his bloody uniform as I told him to?’ she asked before the DS could speak.

‘I don’t know. He should have done.’ The DS sighed and looked to the ceiling. ‘Has the boy said anything?’

‘Not yet.’

‘It is paramount we find his brother.’

‘I heard that his mother was still alive. How is she?’

‘I don’t know where you heard that from. Both parents were pronounced dead at the scene. They were hacked to death.’

‘Jesus. Well he doesn’t need to know any of that. Not now at any rate.’

‘We’ve managed to locate a relative in Newcastle. She’s coming straight down, but it’ll be a few hours before she gets here. Look, whatever happened in that house, he saw it, or at least heard it, and I need to know.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

Pat Campbell looked over the doctor’s shoulder, through the narrow glass window in the door, and into the room at the young boy drawing as if nothing extraordinary had happened. ‘How does he seem?’

‘He’s in a complete shutdown, which isn’t uncommon. When it comes to anything traumatic sometimes our brain takes time to come to terms with it and until it does, it shuts down. It’s a self-preservation thing.’

‘So he’ll soon come out of…whatever this is, and be able to tell us what happened?’

‘In theory, yes.’

‘Why only in theory?’

‘Depending on what he saw his brain may not want him to remember.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Campbell said, leaning back against the wall for support. ‘What’s with the drawings?’

‘It’s a way of helping young children come to terms with what they’ve witnessed. Whatever they draw is usually an indication of what’s going on in their heads. Hopefully it will help to understand what went on in that house, and then we can take our therapy from there.’

‘And what’s he drawn so far?’

‘He’s drawn his house with a tree next to it.’

‘Does that tell you anything significant?’

‘Not yet,’ she half smiled. ‘It’s early days. He’s clearly looking at what happened from the outside. If his next drawing is also a house, I’ll ask him about the inside and see what he draws when I talk about the rooms in the house.’

Pat shook her head. ‘My God, the mind is a powerful thing isn’t it? I don’t envy your job.’

There was nothing the doctor could say to that. There were times she didn’t envy her job either. ‘Is there any chance of getting him in some of his own clothes? That sodding tracksuit stinks.’

‘I’ll get something brought over from the house.’

‘And how about a glass of milk and some chocolate?’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘Thank you.’

She turned and went back into the room. Jonathan had drawn two adults, a child, and was currently on a second child: his family. Dr McCartney bent down next to him and watched him draw in the details: the hair, the clothes, the eyes, the smiles. He then picked up a red felt-tip and with a forceful action that caused the doctor and PC to jump, he scribbled all over the picture. He didn’t stop until his mother, father, and brother were completely covered in blood.

Chapter 1

Twenty years later

Matilda Darke had been looking forward to this day for nine months. In that time she had been through a painful miasma of emotions; from a deep depression where she wanted to spend the rest of her life under the duvet, to mild hysteria where tears would flow like a swollen river for no apparent reason. Now, after a long course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, weekly sessions with a psychologist, and popping antidepressants as if they were about to be rationed, she was back to her fighting best, she told herself.

It was the first Monday in December. She’d woken two hours before the alarm, to a freezing cold house. The central heating had failed to switch on, and, according to the digital thermometer on her windowsill, it was minus four degrees outside. It wasn’t much warmer inside.

She showered longer than usual, until the blood in her veins thawed and was flowing around her body once more, then forced down a breakfast of black coffee and two slices of granary toast. Chewing was a chore. Part of her was excited to return to work, hold her head up high and show the world she was still a force to be reckoned with. Another part of her was crying inside and longing for the security of her duvet once again.

Her three-year-old Ford Focus stuttered in the cold but didn’t take too long to warm up. It was as if it knew she wanted a smooth ride with no trouble on her first day back.

The twenty-minute journey went without a hitch, and she was soon turning into the familiar car park. It was as if she had never been away. She took a deep breath, allowed herself a little smile, and turned left to her usual parking space.

Matilda quickly slammed on the brakes and gripped the steering wheel tightly. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest and the prickly sensation of an oncoming panic attack rose up the back of her neck.

‘Walpole, Compton, Pelham, Newcastle, Devonshire,’ she whispered under her breath.

She looked ahead at the brand-new black Audi in her parking space. Who did it belong to? Had the owner not been informed of her return? She had a lump in her throat that was hard to swallow. Suddenly she didn’t think coming back was such a good idea.

Fifteen minutes later, after finding an empty parking space at the back of the building, she was sitting on an uncomfortable chair, the padding in the seat dangling out, waiting to be called into her boss’s office.

She looked around the small anteroom at the cheap framed prints on the walls. There was a tall vase of plastic flowers in the corner; each fake petal had a thick layer of dust, dulling the lively colours to a pathetic grey. There was a sharp smell of pine disinfectant in the air, which was itching at the back of her throat.

The light above the door turned from red to green.

‘Shit,’ she said to herself. ‘Here we go.’

She stood up and straightened her new navy trouser suit. It was the first new item of clothing she’d bought in over a year, and it had been an unwelcome surprise to find she’d gone up a dress size. She ran her fingers through her dark blonde hair, which had been neatly trimmed only last week. Matilda was forty-one years old, and felt like she was about to enter the head teacher’s office to be told off for cheating on her maths test.

Before pushing down the door handle she looked at her hands; they were shaking. This was not a good sign.

‘Oh my goodness, look at you.’ Every word was said as if a sentence of its own. It was highly unprofessional, but Assistant Chief Constable Valerie Masterson leapt up from behind her oversized desk and took Matilda in a tight embrace. ‘Sit yourself down. I have a pot of coffee just made.’

They sat at opposite sides of the desk, which dwarfed the slight frame of the ACC. They examined each other in silence for a long minute.

To Matilda, Valerie looked much older than her fifty-three years. She was thinner than the last time they’d met, and she had more wrinkles, as if she had a slow puncture. Matilda briefly wondered if Valerie was thinking similar negative remarks about her; Can she tell I’ve put on weight. Is my hair a mess? Have I aged much?

‘You’re looking very well,’ Valerie lied convincingly.

‘Thank you. I feel well,’ Matilda lied back.

Valerie Masterson, a caffeine addict, did not like the black goo that came out of the vending machines dotted around the police station, so had her own personal Gaggia in her office. She poured them both a medium-sized cup, white with one sugar for herself and, remembering, black for Matilda.

‘So, your first day back. Are you ready for this?’

‘I really am. I want to put this past year behind me and get back to normal as quickly as possible.’

‘I’m sure you do. Unfortunately, I can’t return you to active duty just yet.’

The painted-on smile suddenly fell from Matilda’s face. ‘Why not? We discussed on the phone last week…’

‘What I mean is that I have to adhere to the conditions laid out in your psychiatric report.’

‘My what?’

Valerie leaned forward and pulled a brown folder from deep within her in tray. She took out the five-page report and began skimming through it.

Matilda was itching to lean across the desk, snatch the report from her, and find out what that belittling therapist had been saying about her.

‘Now there’s no need to worry. I don’t know any of the details of your sessions with Dr Warminster. Those, as you know, are private. However, Dr Warminster was asked to submit a report before you returned to work; giving her opinion on your readiness and the level of workload you would be able to cope with.’

‘She’s not happy with me returning to full-time duty?’ Beneath the desk Matilda screwed her hands into tight fists, her fingernails digging hard into her palms. Her knuckles were white. The pain ran up her arms and she could almost feel the instant relief.

‘Not at all. She has written a glowing report. She admires your courage and your recovery.’ The ACC smiled.

Was that a genuine smile or was it forced? There was no wrinkling around the eyes to express a sincere smile, but then there wasn’t much room on her face for more wrinkles. Matilda chastised herself for letting her mind wander. ‘But…’

‘She just doesn’t think you should be running a major department straightaway. She recommends you be eased back into work slowly, and I tend to agree.’

‘Is this a cosy way of telling me I’m being demoted?’ Throughout her nine months away, one of the main issues on Matilda’s mind was being stripped of the Detective Chief Inspector title she had worked so hard to achieve.

‘You are not being demoted Matilda. You are one of South Yorkshire’s leading DCIs. You’re well known for your work and dedication. But I can’t have you handling a major investigation until all parties concerned know you are ready to do so.’

‘All parties?’

‘You, me, Dr Warminster, the Chief Constable. We are all behind you one hundred per cent.’

Newcastle, Bute, Grenville, Rockingham, Pitt the Elder, she said to herself. Why was the mere mention of her therapist’s name causing her such anxiety? She managed to control her stress by reciting the names of British Prime Ministers; a technique suggested by Dr Warminster in the first place.

Matilda knew that the support of her superiors was a hollow promise. Yes, she had made a mistake. Yes, she had suffered for it. ‘Look, there’s no denying I’ve changed in the past year, but I am still a DCI. I’m still capable of doing my job. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here now. I know I can do this.’ She wondered who she was trying to convince.

Valerie reached into her top drawer and pulled out a thick file. The folder had seen better days and was covered in coffee-mug rings and splashes. ‘Do you remember the Harkness killings?’ she asked, interlocking her fingers and resting her hands on top of the file.

Matilda knew where this was going. ‘You’re giving me a cold case aren’t you?’

‘I just want you to look at it. A month, six weeks at the most.’

‘Is there any new evidence?’

Valerie looked down at the file. ‘Not as such.’

‘What does that mean?’ Matilda folded her arms. She could feel the prickling heat in the back of her neck.

‘Do you know the case?’

‘Everybody does. It’s part of Sheffield folklore.’

‘The house is being demolished tomorrow.’

‘About time.’

‘I had a reporter on the phone from The Star last week asking if the case was up for review.’

‘I’m guessing that it is now.’

‘Due to budget cuts we no longer have an active review board looking at resting cases. The house being demolished isn’t only going to have local interest but national too. It was a big story. I don’t want them thinking people can get away with murder in South Yorkshire.’

‘So it’s a PR exercise?’

‘Matilda, I believe this case can be solved. It may have been a long time ago but the killer is within these files. I know it. If anyone can find the killer of Stefan and Miranda Harkness, it’s you.’

Matilda knew she was being placated. With the botched Carl Meagan kidnapping still fresh in the minds of the Sheffield people it would not look good if a DCI with a heavy cloud over her head was leading a major investigation. If, on the other hand, she could solve a well-known cold case there would be smiles all round. She reached forward for the file, but pulled her hand back quickly.

Grafton, North, Wentworth, Petty, North and Fox.

‘I’ll need a DC.’

‘I’ll assign one to you.’

‘And an office to work in.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘Where’s all the evidence?’

‘On its way from storage. You’ll have access to everything pertaining to the Harkness case and carte blanche on interviews.’

Matilda rolled her eyes. The files were on their way. The decision had already been made. She began to wonder if this was the beginning of the end for her. Did anyone want to work with her any more? ‘What if I can’t solve it?’

‘I have faith in you.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘Then it remains a cold case.’

‘Will I be able to return to the murder team when all this is over?’

‘That will be reviewed at the time.’

She could feel a tension headache coming on. The impulse to throw her ID on the table and resign was bubbling up inside her, almost at eruption level.

‘Are you still seeing Dr Warminster?’ Valerie asked when she saw the DCI chewing her bottom lip.

‘I have no choice in the matter. A bit like the situation here.’

‘Matilda, a great deal has changed in this past year. Work on this case, keep seeing Dr Warminster, and everyone will be happy.’

‘Everyone except me.’

‘Did you honestly think you’d be able to return to front-line duty as if nothing had happened?’

‘Yes I did. A review panel cleared me of any wrongdoing. I should be able to pick up where I left off.’

‘And you will. This is the final hurdle. Look, South Yorkshire Police isn’t exactly going through the best of times at the moment; the Hillsborough Inquiry and the child abuse scandal in Rotherham are just two major headaches I have to contend with. I cannot be seen to have you return to front-line work as if nothing’s happened.’

Grudgingly, Matilda picked up the file. She feared that the second her fingers gripped the folder there would be no going back.

‘There’s one more stipulation…’ Valerie began.

Of course there is.

‘Dr Warminster has recommended reduced working hours.’

Matilda didn’t say anything. She was already being stripped of her powers, her role within the force taken away from her, segregated from her colleagues; anything else they added was out of her control and not worth fighting over. This was a battle she was not going to win.

‘You’re not to start work before 9 a.m. and you’re to be out of the station by 4 p.m. Is that understood?’

Matilda rose from her seat clutching the cold-case file firmly to her chest. ‘That’s fine,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll be able to get home in time for my game shows.’

She turned on her heels and swiftly left the room. She wanted to slam the door, but would wait until she arrived home, and, at the top of her voice, would scream into a pillow from the pit of her lungs – another stress-relieving exercise from the two-faced harpy Dr Warminster.

Chapter 2

The detached five-bedroom house in Whirlow sat in its own grounds. It was set back from a main road, and a boundary of neatly trimmed evergreens sheltered it from view. A gravel driveway forked off; one way leading to a double front door, the other to a detached garage, which sat proudly next to the house. Made of classic red brick in the Victorian era, it also included two impressive chimney stacks, and large windows.

A house and grounds of this age needed regular attention to remain looking grand. Unfortunately, nothing had been tended in over twenty years. The evergreens had been left to wild abandon, the branches drooped lifelessly, and the once brilliant green was now dull.

The garden was overgrown, the driveway almost hidden under weeds and brown leaves. The house itself was dead. Windows had been smashed and boarded up with cheap plywood. One chimney had collapsed, and the lead stolen from the roof, which had very few tiles remaining. The garage door was covered in graffiti.

A strong wooden fence surrounded the entire plot. Crudely attached stickers informed passers-by that the house was due for demolition. The once grand building was now an eyesore to everyone in the neighbourhood, and had a knock-on effect to selling prices of nearby properties.

Towards the back of the plot there was a gap between the last fence panel and the evergreens. It was a tight squeeze, but just manageable for someone thin enough to wriggle through without being seen from the main road.

Once through, the man dressed in black dusted himself off and stood up to look at the house. It was pathetic and sad to see such a wonderful building fall into a state of decay.

There wasn’t much to see; the downstairs windows were all boarded up. The padlock on the sheet of plywood covering the back door was rusted and didn’t take much striking from a rock to break it. He pushed open the door and entered.

The back door led straight into the kitchen, once the heart of the family home. It was dark and had the bitter smell of death. Cobwebs hung from the walls and light fittings, and a thick film of dust covered every surface. The kitchen had all the mod cons a wealthy family could wish for, though everything was now dated. The food processor was the size of a microwave oven. A yellowed salad spinner sat on the work surface next to the cooker. Did people still use salad spinners?

The man went through the kitchen into the large hallway. A sweeping staircase with ornate wood panelling led up to the first floor. The stairs looked warped. He wasn’t sure if he should risk climbing them.

He went through to the living room and was surprised to find the furniture still there. He could understand burglars not taking the relic kitchen implements, but he thought someone would have made use of the corner suite and even the bulky television set. He smiled at the memories the room brought back and sat down on the seat he had graced as a child. It was closest to the television so he could watch his favourite programmes without being disturbed by someone passing the screen and blocking his view.

The dining room was a sad sight. The unit that housed the best crockery had been pulled off the wall, all the plates smashed on the floor. He bent down and picked up a jagged piece. He wiped the dust from it and smiled at the pink flowery pattern. His mum loved this dinner service. It was only to be used on special occasions; Christmas, birthdays, and big family dinners. Probably kids had broken in and smashed it, not caring about the sentimental value.

From the hallway he looked up the stairs. He was tempted to ascend, despite how unstable they looked, but was frightened about what he would see. If the kitchen had been left in the state it was on the final night someone was living here, what would the bedrooms be like? Did the police clean up after a crime or would the walls be covered in dried blood, carpet matted with the leaked insides of its occupants, and bodily fluids allowed to dry and disintegrate into the very soul of the house?

The memory of what happened on the first floor angered him. It all came flooding back. He no longer wanted to go upstairs. He wanted to leave this place. He should never have come back.

He quickly left, slamming the back door behind him and securing the plywood back into position. Nobody would care that a padlock had been broken. He looked at his shaking hands, they were covered in dust. It was in his hair, up his nose, and in his mouth. He could taste the decay, the mould and the decomposition, not only of the building but of the people who had once lived inside.

Chapter 3

Everything had already been set out for Matilda; a room allocated and the dusty Harkness files brought out of storage.

The office was no bigger than one of the holding cells in the bowels of the police station. Behind the door was an old mop and metal bucket, long since abandoned. The room had a pungent smell of damp. The only window was covered with a yellowed venetian blind, each metal slat caked in years’ worth of dust.

She went around the desk, briefly glancing down at the files, and pulled at the cord. It was brittle and snapped in her hands; the blind was staying shut. There would be no natural light in here. The only light came from the bare sixty watt bulb dangling from the ceiling. If there was ever a room to tip a depressive DCI over the edge, this was definitely it.

Matilda turned her back on the window and took in the room, which would be her place of work for the next four to six weeks.

‘Welcome back Matilda,’ she said to herself, ‘we’ve really missed you.’

She looked at the faded labels on the folders neatly placed on what was her new desk; witness statements, forensic reports, crime-scene photos, police reports – it was all here: everything she needed to know about the Harkness case. She reached out for one, but her hand stopped short of picking it up. What was this mental block she had all of a sudden?

There was a box file on the corner of her desk. She leaned forward and quickly flung back the lid. It was practically empty apart from a thick paperback book. Frowning, she lifted it out and studied it. The pages had yellowed with age and it had obviously been well thumbed before being archived. The cover, although faded, was an image of a crime scene: the slumped body of a naked woman lying face down on a crumpled bed surrounded by splashes of blood. Matilda knew straight away what this was: A Christmas Killing by Charlie Johnson was the ‘definitive true account of Britain’s most brutal unsolved crime’, according to the blurb.

She briefly remembered the book being released in the late 1990s but had never read it. She tried to avoid true-crime books wherever possible.

According to the first page, Charlie Johnson was one of Britain’s leading crime writers, having worked on several national newspapers in a career spanning two decades. Apparently he had covered many of Britain’s shocking crimes for national and international media. Matilda wondered if Charlie Johnson had actually written his biography himself. There was no author photograph, but she pictured him having small piggy eyes and a permanent smug smile that could only be removed by a sharp slap.

INTRODUCTION

The British police force is one of the finest, and most respected, in the world boasting an array of dedicated detectives who will stop at nothing until they find their culprit. Unfortunately, there are times when a case can go cold, the killer goes to ground, and justice for the victim is trapped in a state of limbo.

One crime which shook the nation in the 1990s was the case of the Harkness killings at Christmastime. A hard-working husband and wife were brutally slain while their youngest child was forced to look on in horror. What happened on that fateful night has never been fully revealed…until now. Featuring lengthy interviews with witnesses, family, friends, and neighbours, A Christmas Killing will throw a new light on the case and…

Matilda’s reading was interrupted by her mobile phone ringing. She was thankful of the interruption. The introduction, written like he was a fly on the wall at the time of the killings, was vomit-inducing.

‘Good morning DCI Darke. How does it feel to be back in the saddle?’ The cheery caller was Adele Kean, the duty pathologist and Matilda’s best friend.

Adele’s breezy tone was infectious and Matilda found herself smiling for the first time. ‘I’m not back in the saddle unfortunately. You could say I’m in the side car.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Matilda leaned back carefully in her wooden chair, hoping it wasn’t as brittle as the blind. ‘Apparently I’m not to be trusted. I have to prove myself again before I’m allowed to play with the big boys.’

‘Oh Matilda. I’m so sorry. We did wonder whether this would happen didn’t we? I suppose it’s not come as too great a shock.’

‘No, I suppose not. I’m not even allowed to sit with the big boys. I’ve been given a grotty little office no bigger than a cupboard under the stairs.’

‘Well if it’s anything like the cupboard under my stairs the cat usually puts her finds there. Be on the lookout for dead sparrows.’

‘Judging by the smell I think there may be a dead albatross in here somewhere.’

‘Is everyone pleased to have you back?’

‘I’ve not seen anyone. It’s like they’re keeping out of my way. I don’t know what they think I’m going to do to them. I’ve had a meeting with the ACC. She’s given me a project to keep me out of trouble.’

‘What?’

‘Apparently I have to pass a test before I can move on to the next level. I’ve been given a cold case to solve,’ she said, lifting up the cover of the first file and taking a look at the top sheet.

‘Well, you do enjoy a puzzle.’

‘A puzzle I can solve. This isn’t a cold case, it’s frozen solid. It’s its own little ice age.’

‘What’s the case?’

‘The Harkness murders.’

‘Bloody hell. Well, anything you want to run by me give me a holler. I don’t mind playing Jessica Fletcher.’

‘I’ll remember that when I’m tearing my hair out. Did you know the house is being demolished tomorrow?’

‘Is it? Well I’m not surprised. It’s stood empty for years, even Dracula would apply for rehousing if he lived in there.’

Matilda laughed and felt herself relaxing.

‘It’s good to hear you laugh, Mat. Fancy meeting for lunch? Panini on me.’

‘Yes OK. I’d like that. I’m not sure what time I’ll be free though.’

‘That’s OK. I’m off today. Give me a call.’

Matilda promised that she would, said goodbye, and hung up. She realized she was still smiling and had an air of confidence about her. This always happened in Adele’s company. Her positivity was as infectious as a baby’s giggle. Adele should be bottled and issued on the NHS to people with depression.

A knock on the door brought Matilda back to reality. She looked around at the drab office and felt her stomach somersault. How was it possible her mood could leap up and down so rapidly? She made a mental note to bring her antidepressants tomorrow.

She called for her visitor to enter, but her mouth was dry. She cleared her throat a couple of times and tried again.

The door opened a small amount, the hinges creaking loudly. A head peered around the door. It was DS Sian Mills.

‘Hello, I heard you were back,’ her voice was soft, almost timid, as if talking to a patient who had just woken from major surgery.

Matilda was not sure she had the strength for this. All the old familiar faces she had seen, known, and worked with would hunt her out one by one to have the same welcome-back conversation. Some would be genuine, Sian in particular, others would be more perverse. They would want to see the state she was in, and get the gory details of her absence. Matilda suddenly realized she was the human equivalent of a car crash.

She took a deep breath. ‘Sian, good to see you. Come on in.’

‘Welcome back Mats. You’ve been missed. You really have.’

‘Thank you. I like your hair.’

‘Thanks. I wasn’t sure at first. I thought it made me look like a twelve-year-old boy. Stuart likes it though.’ She ran her hand around the back of her neck. ‘You’re looking…well,’ she said for want of a better word. She tried not to stare too much at the woman who was, in effect, still her boss. It was difficult, however, not to notice such a drastic change in her appearance.

‘Thanks. I feel well.’ Would the lies this morning never stop?

‘I didn’t realize you were coming back today. If I’d known I’d have made some muffins or got you a card.’

‘That’s really sweet but I don’t want a fuss.’

‘No. Of course not. You’re right. Start as you mean to go on and all that,’ she half laughed.

‘Something like that.’ She gave a weak smile and glanced at the Harkness files.

‘You’ll have to come up to the Murder Room, see us all, have a coffee.’

‘I will. Maybe a bit later.’ Another lie.

‘How about lunch? We can catch up. Did I tell you Stuart’s father died? He’s only left us his boat. Can you believe that? What are we supposed to do with a boat in Sheffield?’

‘Some other time perhaps. I’ve got plans this lunchtime.’

‘Oh. OK. No problem. I understand. Well, let me know when.’

‘Will do.’

‘Well I’d better be going.’ She made her way to the doorway. ‘It really is great to have you back.’

Matilda offered a painful smile as a farewell. Any words would have choked her.

As soon as Sian left the room, closing the door behind her, Matilda felt her body begin to relax once more. She had been tense throughout the conversation. Why should she feel on edge around Sian? She had known her for years, worked with her on many investigations, cried and ranted at the state of the judicial system when a killer went free, and had a few too many Martinis together at Christmas parties. If she couldn’t relax around a friend, how was she going to react around others she considered to be mere colleagues?

Pitt the Younger, Addington, Pitt the Younger, Grenville, Cavendish-Bentinck.

Maybe she had returned to work too early, but then how much longer could she keep putting it off? Surely nine months was more than enough.

She shook her head as if dispelling the dark thoughts, and busied herself with the evidence boxes scattered around the room. She lifted one up, expecting it to be heavy, but was surprised by how light it was, and placed it on her desk. She removed the lid tentatively and peered inside. There was only one item in it: sealed in an evidence bag was the neatly folded white shirt belonging to a small boy. Standing out against the pure white cotton material, pools of dried blood covered the front.

Matilda reached in and lifted it out. She held it firmly in both hands. Searching back in her memory twenty years, she briefly remembered eleven-year-old Jonathan Harkness being found alone at the crime scene. How long had he been there? Had he been present in the room as his parents were butchered in front of him? If so, why hadn’t the killer turned on him too? Respectfully, she gently placed the shirt back in the box and returned the lid.

Another knock at the door brought her back from her reverie. She sniffled and realized she was on the brink of tears, clearly from the effects of the bloodied shirt belonging to an innocent child mixed with her already fragile emotional state. Maybe she would feel better once she started on the case properly.

‘Come in.’

This time the door breezed open and in bounded DC Rory Fleming like Tigger on Ecstasy.

‘Rory, good to see you. What can I do for you?’ She tried to sound jolly but it came out rather laboured.

‘I’ve been assigned to you ma’am, for the Harkness case.’

‘Oh right. Well come on in. Have a seat, if you can find room.’

He shut the door and sat on the hard wooden seat on the opposite side of the desk. They eyed each other up in painful silence.

‘So, are you pleased to be back?’

‘Right,’ she began, slapping her hands on the desk, ‘let’s get things settled before we begin. Firstly, you don’t need to treat me like I’m made of glass. I’m not going to break. Secondly, you don’t have to be careful about what you say. There’s bound to be some mention of missing children or kidnapping at some point, and while it will bring back memories, they’re my memories and not yours, so don’t worry. Thirdly, the length of time I was off was due to personal reasons, which have no effect on my work, so you don’t need to know about them. Is that all right?’

Rory looked taken aback by the speech. He nodded as if summing it up. ‘That’s fine by me,’ he gave a pained smile.

‘Good. So, how are things with you?’

‘No offence but that’s a personal matter, which has no effect on my work, so you don’t need to know about that.’

Matilda threw her head back and gave out a natural laugh straight from the pit of her stomach. Yes, she definitely had made the right decision to return to work.

Chapter 4

DC Rory Fleming was a good-looking young man in his late twenties. He had the clean-cut look of a fresh-faced Premiership footballer with brawn to match. He took care of his appearance; always wore well-fitted, clean suits, which hung on him like they did on the shop dummy, and seemed to have a new tie every day. Now, trapped in an office the size of a prison cell with a mountain of paperwork to wade through and with no natural ventilation, his skin was dry, his hair ruffled from the many times he had run his fingers through it in exasperation, and his once crisp white shirt creased, with the sleeves rolled up.

He had just finished reading a section of Charlie Johnson’s ‘definitive book’ on the Harkness killings. Twenty years ago Fleming was still an infant, overly excited about the upcoming visit from Father Christmas, and stealing chocolates from the back of the Christmas tree.

DC Fleming was Sheffield born and bred. He knew of the Harkness case, having heard the story many times from various relatives, and colleagues on the job, but he wasn’t familiar with the gory details. The killings were frenzied. From the crime-scene photographs, Stefan Harkness had been killed at his desk, where he was sitting. It appeared the killer had come from behind and caught him unawares. All it took was a single stab wound in the back of his neck to render him immobile. He had been unable to fend off his attacker, and died where he sat.

The killing of his wife, however, was one of unadulterated rage. The bed was covered in blood and the sheets disturbed. From the height and direction of the blood sprays she had been knifed in the chest and tried to flee her attacker. She stumbled onto the bed and managed to get to the other side before being struck again. Once on the floor the violent attack continued with the knife raining down on her back. The wounds were deep. Whoever committed this crime had plenty of power and weight to plunge the knife so deeply and be physically able to rip it out again.

‘Where are you up to?’ Matilda asked, interrupting his reading.

‘The bit where Jonathan was found by a neighbour.’

‘What do you think?’

‘Of the book? It’s a bit…’

‘Shit?’ Matilda completed the thought for him.

‘I wasn’t going to say that. It’s a bit…I don’t know…voyeuristic. It goes into a lot of detail. How did this Charlie Johnson get all this stuff?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Extract from A Christmas Killing by Charlie Johnson

CHAPTER ONE: A DARK AND DEADLY NIGHT

Wednesday December 21, 1994

It had been dark for most of the day. A grey sky heavy with snow loomed over Sheffield and the temperature hadn’t risen above zero all day. A biting wind from the north made it feel colder and whenever a gust blew it felt like needles against bare skin. Work had to be done, and school had to be attended, but when darkness fell the best place to be was indoors, wrapped up warm and in front of a roaring fire.

Wednesday night marked the first in a series of Christmas events at St Augustine’s Church at Brocco Bank. The first night was a carol concert in which local school children would spend forty-five minutes delighting the congregation with their unique rendition of popular Christmas songs. The Harkness family was not a religious one but Stefan and Miranda were well known within the community; Stefan, a Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Sheffield and Miranda, a GP. Their attendance was expected. Stefan had recently acquired a grant to set up the Lung Cancer Clinical Trials Group. In the New Year he would begin creating synthetic cancerous cells to be injected into laboratory mice. It was a highly controversial study but the growth of the cells and their effect on the body in stimulated climates could yield a better understanding of lung cancer. If successful, further tests involving other cancers could be carried out. Miranda had recently been made a partner in the Whirlow Medical Centre. She was keen to work more in family planning and was in the early stages of setting up a clinic to provide confidential advice to sexually active teenagers. This project had received negative press and many locals saw it as glorifying teenage promiscuity. In January, Miranda, and the other partners at Whirlow, would send a letter to all patients and the neighbouring community to allay any doubts they may have in the programme. Making up the Harkness household were the two children, Matthew aged fifteen and eleven-year-old Jonathan. The brothers were chalk and cheese. They didn’t get on and rarely spent time together. The parents were not worried. They assumed their age difference played a large part in why they didn’t interact and allowed them both free rein to be their own person. Matthew, a typical surly teenager, was excused from attending the concert. Straight from school he went to best friend Philip Clayton’s house, where he stayed for dinner and played in a bedroom on the family computer. He stayed later than usual and at nine o’clock used his friend’s mountain bike to cycle the ten-minute journey home. Judith Clayton, Philip’s mother, waved him off and watched as Matthew cycled down the road and turned left. Once he was out of sight she went back indoors.

The concert started at eight o’clock, and from seven, Miranda was busy getting dressed. In the main bedroom, a half-dressed Stefan was working on a speech he was to give at a departmental Christmas dinner he was attending on December 29th. His speech was to congratulate the team on obtaining the grant which would see them continue their work for the next two years. He wanted to show them how proud he was and he needed the right words. He had already spent several sleepless nights poring over his notepad yet he was still unhappy with the tone. The youngest son, Jonathan, had been left to his own devices and was getting changed in his bedroom. However, he still wasn’t dressed with only fifteen minutes before they had to leave. His mother harshly chastised him to stop playing with his Lego and get dressed.

The Harkness family never made it to the carol concert. Their absence was noticed by many.

After the children had finished singing, a reading was given and the vicar spent ten minutes congratulating everyone involved for such a splendid evening. He then went on to read out the events due to take place over the next few days culminating in midnight Mass on Christmas Eve followed by a very special service on Christmas morning. In the hall at the back of the church, a buffet had been laid on by the Women’s Guild. Once everyone had aired their views on the angelic singing and choice of carols, the conversation turned to the absence of Stefan and Miranda Harkness.

On her way home from the concert, family friend Aoife Quinn drove to the Harkness’s house in Whirlow to see why they hadn’t attended. When she arrived the house was in darkness apart from one room at the back of the house, Jonathan’s bedroom. Ms Quinn knocked on the front door several times without any reply before going to the back of the house and knocking on the kitchen door. Again, she received no answer. She looked up at the window, seeing the light seeping through the gap in the curtains; she knew something was wrong. She tried the handle but the door was locked. She could not leave and go home without finding out what, if anything, had happened. Aoife crossed the road to neighbour Andrea Bickerstaff, and asked if she had a spare key. She did but they decided to phone the house first rather than just walk in. Andrea admitted she had not seen any member of the Harkness family leave the house since Miranda had come home earlier in the afternoon. She telephoned and waited as it rang continuously. The answering machine was not turned on; something Miranda always did when they left the house. It was obvious something was amiss. By now it was almost ten o’clock. Andrea Bickerstaff joined Aoife Quinn and together they went back across the road. Andrea only had a key to the back door. As she put the key in the lock she found there was an obstruction. She forced the key hard and a clang was heard on the other side. A key was already in the lock and Andrea had pushed it out. Andrea went in first and made her way through the ground floor of the house, first calling out for Miranda and then for Stefan. Aoife followed and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Sitting on the top step was eleven-year-old Jonathan. He was pale and cold and in a state of undress. Aoife called Andrea over and they both looked up at the boy. He was unresponsive to their calls. Aoife walked up the stairs slowly and tried to get the boy’s attention. She asked if he was all right and where his parents were, but he did not reply. Eventually, she was close enough to see the dried blood on his hands. Fearing the worst, she instructed Andrea to take Jonathan downstairs but not to touch anything or allow him to wash his hands. Tentatively, she placed a comforting arm around his bony shoulders and eased him up. She almost had to carry him down the stairs. Once they were out of sight, Aoife continued her climb. She had been in the house many times before and knew her way around. At the top of the stairs she turned left and entered the main bedroom where Stefan and Miranda slept. She was stopped in her tracks by the sight of horror which opened out before her. Stefan was slumped over his desk. He was dressed in a white shirt, black socks and black boxer shorts. His back was covered in blood. He had been stabbed once in the back of the neck. A pool of blood surrounded him on the floor. Aoife steadied herself by putting a hand on the door frame. After a moment to compose herself she walked further into the room. Her eyes were drawn to the high blood sprays on the wall and ceiling above the bed. As she made her way around the bed she saw Miranda on the floor. She was dressed in a conservative floor-length ivy-coloured dress. It was soaked in her blood and torn where the knife had cut through to slash at her body. She had been stabbed eight times in the chest and fourteen times in the back. Aoife was brought back to reality from her state of shock by Andrea calling from the bottom of the stairs. She wanted to know what was happening. Aoife quickly ran out of the room and said they needed to call the police.

A murder investigation was launched and Jonathan was taken to hospital. He had no physical injuries but he was unresponsive. He did not react to any test by doctors and did not blink when a light was shone in his eyes. He was in a catatonic state. He was placed in a private room at Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital and guarded by a police officer who stayed with him all night. A missing person investigation was simultaneously launched to seek the whereabouts of fifteen-year-old Matthew Harkness. Neighbours saw him leave the house that morning to go to school but nobody remembered him coming home. In the days that followed, police investigated the lives of the Harkness family both personal and professional. Media interest was high and the story had the whole country gripped. Stefan’s sister Clara came down from Newcastle to look after Jonathan, who, after three days, had not uttered a word. Matthew was still missing.

‘I don’t like this,’ Rory said, putting the book down.

‘What? Is it badly written?’

‘Not just this book, the whole true crime thing. I find it gruesome. It’s so detailed and graphic. And another thing, how did Charlie Johnson know all the little details, like Jonathan’s mum shouting at him for playing Lego? Who told him that?’

‘I thought the same thing. Maybe he’s just using creative licence. Have you noticed what’s missing out of all of these files?’

‘No. What?’

‘A statement from Jonathan.’

‘Well, he went mute didn’t he?’

‘Yes, but for how long? Surely he started speaking again at some point. There’s a psychiatric report on him suffering from shock but that’s it. From the file’s point of view his aunt took him back with her to Newcastle and that’s it. I’m beginning to see why this case was never solved.’

Rory went back to reading the book, his lips moving slightly over each word. ‘Do you have those photographs of Jonathan taken at the scene?’

Matilda had been reading the post-mortem reports. She lifted a folder and then another, eventually finding the pack of pictures he wanted.

Rory rifled through them. He was unfazed by the blood-stained bed, the saturated carpet, and blood-spattered ceiling. Towards the back of the pack he found the pictures of Jonathan he was looking for.

Jonathan had been dressed like his father: white shirt, underwear but no trousers. They were caught by their attacker unawares. The pictures of the eleven-year-old showed him with a blank expression on his face. His hands were red with drying blood.

‘What do you make of this?’ He held up one of the photographs and waited while Matilda marked her place in the report with a Post-it note. She took the picture from him and studied it carefully.

‘What am I looking at?’

‘His hands.’

‘OK. Go on.’

‘Why are his hands covered in blood?’

‘Put yourself in his position, Rory; he’s just found his parents dead, he’s frightened. What does any small boy want when he’s frightened? His mum. He’ll have run over to her and tried to rouse her in some way. Of course his hands are going to be covered in their blood.’

‘Yes, fair enough. It wasn’t long after Stefan was killed before Miranda was killed. If Jonathan had gone into the bedroom then surely the killer was still in there too. Why didn’t the killer murder Jonathan as well as his parents?’

Matilda frowned. ‘Maybe the killer’s gripe wasn’t with Jonathan. Maybe it was all about the parents.’

‘But Jonathan must have seen the killer if he’d gone into the room.’

‘Well, according to Jonathan’s aunt, his mother came up the stairs and saw Jonathan on the landing with blood on him. He’d obviously gone into the bedroom and come back out again.’ She thought for a moment and then continued. ‘Remember back to when you were a kid and you wanted your parents’ attention? You don’t just walk into the room and wait until you’re allowed to speak; you call for them on your way to the room don’t you?’

‘I suppose.’

‘So the killer heard him coming and hid in the en suite until he left. There’s a big difference between killing an adult and killing a child. The majority of convicted killers are appalled by crimes against children.’

‘Yes. That’s true. I suppose that’s why paedophiles are kept apart from everyone else in prison,’ he said. ‘Hang on a minute, Jonathan’s aunt said his mother came up the stairs and found Jonathan with blood on him?’

‘Yes. So?’

‘Where did you get that from?’

Once again Matilda rifled through the mess of paperwork on her desk before she found the two-page document she was looking for. ‘A statement by Clara Harkness given in May 1995.’

‘That’s what, six months after the killings? Jonathan was living in Newcastle by then. So he was obviously talking.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Yet there’s still no statement from Jonathan Harkness. Why not?’

Matilda had to admit that she had no idea why Jonathan was never interviewed. On the other hand, maybe he had given a statement and it had somehow disappeared from the archive over the years. As she looked around the room at the opened boxes of evidence, the stacks of files and packs of photographs, she wondered if she had really been given all the information the ACC had promised. Already the case was throwing up more questions than answers. She was surprised to find DC Fleming so articulate. Where had this sudden intelligence come from?

Rory coughed. Matilda looked up and saw he was studying his watch. She turned back to her post-mortem report and was interrupted by a louder cough. Rory was still staring at his watch.

‘Is something the matter?’

‘Well, it’s just that…’ he seemed nervous and unable to make eye contact with his boss. ‘The thing is…the time.’

Matilda looked at her own watch. It was just after 4.15. ‘What about the…oh. You’ve been told about my curfew?’

‘Yes, sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize; it’s not your fault. Thank you for reminding me. I’d hate to get a detention on my first day back at school.’

They both laughed, but it wasn’t genuine.

‘Shall I continue reading up on the case?’

‘No. Why should you have to stay behind and I go home? Have an early finish. Go home to that girlfriend of yours.’

‘Oh. We’re engaged now, actually,’ he said, his cheeks reddening slightly in embarrassment.

‘Really? Congratulations. When’s the big day?’

‘We’ve not decided yet. Amelia is aiming for promotion so wants to get that out of the way before having to plan a wedding.’

‘What does she do?’

‘She’s a junior solicitor. She wants to specialize in criminal law.’

Matilda was tempted to say something about the potential for a conflict of interest in any of his cases going to court in the years to come, but the sweet smile that lit up his face was full of the innocence of youth. She didn’t want to spoil it for him. She found herself relaxing in Rory’s company. Before her nine month enforced sabbatical she saw Rory as just an annoyingly loud, over-eager DC who would need a serious change of personality if he expected promotion. However, cooped up in the broom cupboard and working on a one-to-one basis she was seeing him in a different light. He was warm and approachable.

‘So what have the others in the Murder Room been up to in my time away?’ The question surprised even Matilda. She had never engaged in gossip before, and although the personal lives of her team were important for her to know in order to find out how they were going to approach particular cases, she kept the majority at arm’s length.

‘Well Sian’s been bitten by the Great British Bake Off bug. She’s been trying out her skills on us, bringing in muffins and cakes. She’s actually quite good. She’s also just inherited a boat which she’s been harping on about for months.’

‘Yes, she mentioned that this morning. It was one of the first things she said.’ Matilda smiled.

‘We think Aaron may be going through a mid-life crisis. Ever since he turned thirty-four he’s gotten all moody. I think there might be trouble at home. I know his wife wants a baby. I’m guessing he’s not playing with a full load.’

‘Blimey Rory, you’re worse than a bunch of women at a school gate.’ She didn’t tell him to stop though.

‘Oh, big news about Scott. You know we all thought he was gay? Well he went out with the blonde one from the press office for a couple of weeks but it didn’t last. Still, I won a fiver off Aaron so I wasn’t complaining.’

‘What’s the new girl like? Faith is it?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘She’s a bit of an enigma. She seems to think she’s been hand-picked to join the team, like she has something special to offer. She’s not even trying to fit in with us and she got Sian’s back up straight away by helping herself to the chocolate drawer and replacing what she took with nut bars and packets of seeds.’

‘How’s her work?’

‘She’s good at what she does; she’s just not much of a team player.’

‘Maybe she’s nervous.’ Matilda found herself sympathizing with a woman she didn’t even know. She could certainly understand what it was like entering an already established team. Even though she’d been with the Murder Investigation Team from day one, she found herself feeling like an outsider again.

She didn’t want to dwell on this for too long; her mood was beginning to sink again. ‘Look, you get off. I’ll tidy up in here. Tomorrow is the demolition of the Harkness house. We’ll meet there at nine o’clock; watch the house being torn down, then plan what we’re going to do next in the pub. OK?’

‘Fine by me. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

As soon as he had gone Matilda closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. The stale air in the room was not helping. She put the post-mortem report, a pack of crime-scene photographs, and witness statements in her bag. She may not be allowed to be in the station past four o’clock, but nobody had said anything about working from home.

Chapter 5

Jonathan Harkness was a timid, frail figure of a man. Standing at six foot tall and a little under ten stone, he looked almost emaciated. His icy blue eyes were sunken and his cheekbones prominent to the point of bursting out of his skin. His thin lips were red and dry. His skin was pale and lacked life, as did his unruly dull hair, which wasn’t styled, merely combed into a neat passable excuse.

He held himself rigid and constantly looked about him, as if frightened of the world he lived in. His body language was cold and unapproachable and his shoulders were permanently hunched. He never allowed himself to relax, not even for a second. He was constantly on his guard.

Jonathan hadn’t been a confident child and preferred his own company to that of his contemporaries. Twenty years ago, when he was eleven years old, his entire world was torn apart with the brutal murder of his parents in cold blood. Everything that happened to him after that night, every decision he made, was born from the fragile mind of a young man who was still unable to break free of that night in December 1994 when he had stood in the doorway of his parents’ bedroom and seen the nightmare unfold before him.

He was grateful for Aunt Clara, who took him away from Sheffield, but once the residents and local press in Newcastle realized who he was, the gossip began, the phone calls began, and they were all after his version of the events.

Eventually it died down and Jonathan could grow up in the shadows, just like he wanted. Now, with the stiff cream envelope in his post box and the logo of the company he knew all too well, his nightmare was about to return. He had been expecting this day to come and now that it had he was surprised by how sanguine he was about it all. It was only a letter after all. What damage could a letter do?

Richards and Rigby Publishing

3 rd Floor Muse House

Swansea Avenue

London

EC1 2BF

December 3, 2014

Dear Jonathan,

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health. As I am sure you are aware your childhood home is due to be demolished in the coming days. I have already had many journalists contact me asking if I will be willing to write a feature on the demolition and a review of the murder of your parents.

Coincidently, next summer I will be releasing a new book titled ‘Britain’s Unsolved Murders’ and will be revisiting some of the crimes I have covered in the past. Naturally I would like the Harkness killings to be at the heart of the book.

I have spent time looking online and chatting to journalists and I see you have never told your story. You must realize that yours is a story worth telling and the whole country would certainly still be interested in reading it.

For your own convenience I can be up in Sheffield in just a couple of hours and we can discuss your story and fees in person. Please contact me as soon as possible so we can get the ball rolling.

Kind regards,

Charlie Johnson

Bloody Charlie Johnson! Would he ever be free from this man? And how the hell did he know he had moved back to Sheffield?

Jonathan took Charlie’s letter into the kitchen and set fire to it over the sink. He dropped the burning sheet and watched as the paper curled and the yellow flames destroyed the neatly printed letter. He turned on the cold-water tap and flushed the scorched scraps of paper down the plughole. He knew more letters would come.

He looked at the calendar on the kitchen wall and saw the red ring he’d drawn around tomorrow’s date. He took a deep breath as he felt a tightness in his chest. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to get through this.

Tomorrow was a big day. The house he had been brought up in was being demolished. It was the end of an era and, hopefully, a chance to put the ghosts to rest.

He intended to visit the house in Whirlow and watch as it was razed to the ground. He was unsure how he would feel about it. He was never one for showing his emotions, not even in private. He doubted he would cry. There was one worry he had about tomorrow which he could not seem to come to terms with; would his brother Matthew attend the demolition? He hoped not. He was absolutely certain he couldn’t cope with seeing him again.

Chapter 6

Matilda Darke tried to make it out of the station without anyone seeing her. She wasn’t bothered about being accosted and forced into a hug and asked how she was feeling; she just didn’t want anyone to notice the files sticking out of the top of her bag.

As she made her way to the car park she sent a quick text to Adele apologizing for missing lunch and wondering if she was still free for a chat over coffee. The reply came almost instantly: COSTA ON DIVISION STREET. TEN MINUTES. YOU’RE BUYING. Matilda smiled to herself as she left the building. The smile dropped as she passed the Audi still in her parking space.

Costa on Division Street was in Sheffield’s City Centre, on the cusp of the student district. It was a large coffee shop with friendly baristas and comfortable seats. Adele was already waiting outside for her.

Adele Kean was the same age as Matilda, forty-one. She was a single mother with a son in his early twenties. Her short, sensible hair, and her eyes, were dark brown.

As soon as she saw Matilda she stepped forward and opened out her arms, scooping up her best friend and gripping her tight.

‘First day over with,’ she said quietly in her ear. ‘I knew you could do it.’

Matilda looked at her with a tear in each eye. ‘You knew more than me then. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve wanted to cry today.’

‘And did you?’

‘Not once.’

‘Good girl.’ Adele took a step back and held Matilda at arm’s length. ‘You look different, brighter, more relaxed.’

‘Well I don’t feel it. I actually feel physically drained. I’m shattered.’

‘No. You look years younger. There’s a sparkle in your eyes I haven’t seen in ages. Come on, let’s get those coffees and you can fill me in.’

Adele took the lead, linking arms, and heading into the warmth of the coffee shop. She went to find a seat while Matilda ordered; a large latte each, a mozzarella and tomato panini for Adele and a meatball one for herself. She slowly made her way with the drinks through the maze of armchairs to the back of the shop. Adele had already shrugged herself out of her knee-length cream duffel coat and was rubbing her hands together to warm up.

‘It’s a shame they don’t do a latte large enough to swim in,’ she said, taking the two-handled mug from the tray and cupping her hands around it.

‘I don’t know how you can drink as much caffeine as you do. I’d be bouncing off the walls.’

‘Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to drink vodka at work so I have to make do with caffeine. I need something to give me a kick when I’m elbow deep in dead bodies.’

Matilda shrugged herself out of her winter coat and hung it over the back of her chair.

‘That’s new,’ Adele said, commenting on her outfit.

‘Well I had to make a good impression for the first day back. Do you like it?’

‘It’s very professional.’

‘That’s a no then.’

‘Well it’s not what I would’ve chosen, but you look good in it.’

‘I’ve gone up a dress size.’ Matilda leaned forward and lowered her voice.

‘We all put on a bit of padding in the winter. It keeps us warm when the government runs out of gas.’

‘Well it’ll be coming off when the spring hits. Nothing in my wardrobe fits any more.’

‘Come spinning with me; you’ll love it.’

‘I seem to remember you saying that about pilates and I hated it.’

‘That was just a fad; nobody does pilates any more. So come on, let’s have all the gossip from your first day.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘There must be. Is everyone pleased to see you?’

‘The ones I’ve seen are. I’m guessing the ones who aren’t have stayed out of my way. I think Ben Hales has been avoiding me.’

‘He seems to have done a good job while you’ve been away.’

‘That’s not really what I want to hear Adele.’

‘I’m not saying he’s better than you but you can’t deny he’s good at his job. He’s not got the people skills you have. I was speaking to Sian a couple of weeks ago when that body was fished out of the River Don. She was telling me how the atmosphere changes when he enters the room. He just can’t chat to people.’

‘He’s never been able to. He can’t make eye contact. I heard he only made DI because of who he’s married to.’

‘Who is he married to?’

‘Sara Monroe as was. Her father used to be Chief Constable down in Southampton.’

‘Bloody arse-licker. Have you seen the car he drives?’

‘It’s not an Audi is it?’

‘A bloody great big Audi.’

‘I thought so. It’s been in my parking space all day.’

‘Paid for by Chief Constable Father-in-law no doubt.’

Their gossiping was interrupted by a young barista bringing over their food. He looked like a student who was working part-time. Adele admired that in the young generation. As he turned to walk away she also admired his bum.

‘Adele! He’s young enough to be your son.’

‘So I can’t even look now?’

They both laughed. It almost felt like old times – before Matilda’s life fell apart.

‘I was trawling the Internet this afternoon and did a bit of digging about the Harkness killings,’ Adele said between bites. ‘There wasn’t a shortage of suspects.’

‘I know. The Harkness case really was a mammoth task. Stefan was a researcher doing something with testing on animals. He’d received death threats from animal rights groups and I’ve got a file of over thirty interviews to go through. Miranda was a GP and was setting up a clinic to help teenagers know all about safe sex. That didn’t go down too well in the local community. If I was Poirot and I wanted to gather all my suspects I’d have to hire the Crucible Theatre.’

‘I don’t envy your task.’

‘Neither do I. The problem is I feel like I have to solve this to prove myself once again. It’s like an initiation.’

‘Did Masterson actually say that?’

‘Not in so many words. What with the house being demolished tomorrow it’s back in the press and it doesn’t look good for South Yorkshire Police to have a famous unsolved case on its hands. I just don’t think I can solve it.’

‘Come on, Mat, less of the negativity. Look at yourself; you’re back at work. You’ve made it. Show them what they’ve been missing out on while you’ve been away.’

Matilda threw down the remnants of her panini. Suddenly the weight of the task was back on her shoulders. She felt the room closing in on her, the lights seemed to dim, and the background noise of a hissing coffee machine and chatting customers all mingled into white noise. She closed her eyes and took in a slow deep breath.

Adele saw the signs of an oncoming panic attack. She had been through many of these with Matilda over the past nine months. She knew the drill. She placed her coffee mug on the saucer and leaned across the table. She put her warm hand on top of Matilda’s ice-cold hand.

‘Let’s start at the 1900s. Arthur Balfour,’ Adele encouraged.

Matilda didn’t say anything. She screwed her eyes tighter and took a deeper breath. Everything went dark. The background noise of coffee drinkers chatting and the machines spitting out steam grew louder and mingled into one undefinable squeal.

‘Clear your mind Matty. Come on, Arthur Balfour.’

‘Arthur Balfour…’ she said slowly.

‘You can do this, come on. Concentrate. Arthur Balfour.’

‘Arthur Balfour, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Herbert Henry Asquith, David Lloyd George.’ Matilda’s breathing began to steady.

‘Two more.’

‘Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin.’ She took a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Did someone have their hands around her throat, squeezing the breath out of her?

‘Another two more. Keep breathing.’

‘Ramsey Macdonald and Neville Chamberlain.’

‘Are you all right?’

Matilda took a final deep breath and felt her body relax. She slowly opened her eyes. ‘Yes I’m fine. Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it. That therapist of yours might be a bit of a cow but she knows her stuff. Who would have thought the Prime Ministers of this country would have such an impact on mental health?’

‘It didn’t have to be Prime Ministers. It could have been anything; kings and queens, American states, anything.’

‘Doctor Who actors?’

‘I think I’d soon run out of those.’

‘How about James Bond actors?’ Her face almost lit up. ‘Though as soon as I got Sean Connery in my head I’d stop right there.’

Matilda was looking past Adele and out of the window. How could she function as a member of the police force if every time a sliver of doubt entered her head she fell into a maelstrom of panic? This wasn’t even an active case; it was a cold case that nobody expected her to solve. How would she cope under the pressure of a murder investigation in the here and now?

‘What are you thinking about?’ Adele asked.

‘I’m just beating myself up. I’m really not ready for this.’

‘Yes you are. You’re worth ten of Ben Hales. This is who you are. You’re going to get better and I’m going to help you.’

Matilda shrugged. ‘You’ve got your own life. You’ve got Chris.’

‘Chris can take care of himself. He’s a big boy.’

‘Yes and I’m a big girl…’

‘Who’s suffered a great loss,’ she interrupted. ‘There’s no shame in accepting help. Now, I will help you and not just with your panic attacks,’ she said, lowering her voice so she wouldn’t be overheard. ‘I’ll help with the Harkness case too. We’ll be like Cagney and Lacey.’

‘Which one are you?’

‘I could never remember which was which. I’ll be the good-looking one. Kean and Darke Investigators Extraordinaire.’

Matilda smiled, but not with her eyes. ‘You’ve got your own work. I can’t ask you to help me all the time.’

‘You’re not asking. Look, what is actually bothering you in all this; is it Ben Hales?’

‘No. I’m worried that I’ll screw up again.’

‘You didn’t screw up before.’

‘Didn’t I? Adele, I killed a child, for crying out loud.’

Chapter 7

The winter months meant dark evenings, dark nights, and dark mornings. Usually the only daylight Jonathan Harkness saw was when he looked through the window of the bookshop he worked in. Any other time he was surrounded by darkness, and he loved it.

When he was away from work he was still surrounded by books. His flat was full of them. He lived on the ground floor of a small apartment block. There were two bedrooms, a large living/dining room and kitchen and bathroom. There were books in almost every room, taking up every available space.

Aunt Clara had told him the ability to read and write was important. While hiding from the agony of the murder of his parents he lost himself in fiction. While hiding from the neighbour children and the bullies at school he sought solace in fiction. Eventually books became an obsession and he spent every waking moment reading.

His biggest passion was crime fiction. In his living room, the large back wall was lined from top to bottom with purpose-built shelves, all of them bursting with books. Hardback and paperbacks of all sizes. They were in alphabetical order and then categorized in the order they were written. He lived in his own little library.

It wasn’t long after he had moved into the flat that he ran out of space for his collection and he turned the box room into a reading room. He built shelves and bought an expensive leather wing chair. He blacked out the window to make sure no natural light would fade the colours on the spines of the book covers. This room was his haven. Every night when he finished work he would have a bite to eat, usually a sandwich, then go into his reading room – closing the door behind him, locking himself away from the outside world – and absorb himself in fantasy.

Reading the exploits of detectives such as Wexford, Jordan, Thorne, Banks, Dalziel and Pascoe, Dalgliesh, Frost, Grace, Rebus, Stanhope, Cooper and Fry, Serrailler, and Morse he was able to leave behind his own life and troubles and be somebody else.

He would read until his eyes stung with fatigue before retiring to bed and falling asleep, hopefully dreaming of his favourite detectives and not of the horror that haunted his real life.

Jonathan was a Luddite. He did not own a television or a computer. He didn’t have a mobile phone and had no interest in the Internet. He didn’t own any CDs and the only music he listened to was whatever the radio station was playing when he was woken up in the morning. His life revolved around books.

By the time Jonathan arrived home it was pitch-black and the temperature was well below freezing. He was wrapped up in a knee-length black reefer coat, had a black scarf swathed around his neck several times, and black leather gloves. He held himself rigid, his body language closed and stiff, not all due to the cold; he was always tense.

He carried two plastic bags. One contained the bare essentials from the corner shop: butter, milk, coffee, cheese, bread, and the other three paperbacks from the bookshop. Even when he had the day off, he couldn’t stay away from the place.

He opened the main door leading into the well-lit communal hallway. His neighbour directly above him, Maun Barrington, was at her post box. Her eyes lit up when she saw him and she smiled.

‘Hello Jonathan, you’re home late,’ she said.

‘I’ve not worked today, had a few things to do.’ He pulled the scarf down from around his mouth. He didn’t make eye contact and kept his head bowed. He had learned to judge who was around him without looking up and actually seeing.

Her smile dropped. ‘It’s not like you to take time off work.’ She waited, expecting him to elaborate but he didn’t. ‘It’s a cold one today isn’t it?’ she asked, desperate to keep the conversation going.

‘It certainly is,’ he said, unlocking his post box and taking out the single item of junk mail. He looked at the envelope, saw it was a circular offering him cheap broadband, and immediately tore it in half; placing it in the bin under the table.

‘I bet we’re in for a long winter, don’t you?’ Maun said looking outside into the darkness. ‘So depressing.’

Jonathan was just opening the interior door taking him to the corridor where the two ground-floor apartments were when she stopped him.

‘Jonathan, I don’t mean to intrude but…’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I know tomorrow is the day of the demolition. It can’t be an easy time for you.’

‘No it’s not. Not much I can do about it though. It’s not my house.’

‘Are you going?’

He thought about it even though his mind was already made up. ‘Yes, just for a while.’

‘Would you like me to come with you?’

He gave her a feeble smile. ‘That’s nice of you to offer but no thanks.’

‘I don’t mind.’

I bet you don’t. ‘No, honestly, it’s fine. I’m going into work straight afterwards. I just want to see it get started. I’ll only be there about ten minutes.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’ He edged further into the corridor.

‘Well, you know where I am if you change your mind.’

He smiled at her once again and walked quickly away. Conversation over.

Maun Barrington was in her early sixties. She was a widow and had been for almost twenty years. She and Jonathan were very alike; neither had any family and no friends to speak of. The only difference was Maun wanted people around her whereas Jonathan didn’t. She liked Jonathan. She was happy to have him in her life. Nobody else in the building acknowledged her and she looked forward to her conversations with him. She wished he would stay for longer chats, or accept the many invitations to dinner in her flat that she offered.

As Jonathan left she went upstairs into her own home and closed the front door behind her. The layout to her flat was identical to Jonathan’s. She stood in the hallway in silence and listened intently. She heard footsteps coming from below. Jonathan was moving into the kitchen. She went into her kitchen. She heard the sound of running water; he was probably washing his hands. She washed her hands.

From the kitchen, Jonathan made his way into the living room and turned on the fire. He then went into every room and closed the curtains. Upstairs, Maun copied his movements.

Chapter 8

It was a strange sensation arriving home to a cold, empty house but it was something Matilda would have to get used to.

She switched on the lights in the living room and kitchen and poured herself a large glass of vodka from the freezer. Next to the kettle were her tablets. She popped two antidepressants from their blister pack and swallowed them with a mouthful of alcohol. She followed that with two herbal mood lifters she’d bought. Neither seemed to be working. She went into the living room and flopped onto the sofa. She was living in a four-bedroom house all on her own. It was far too big, but her husband had bought this place for them to grow old in. He designed the interior, drew up the plans for the attic conversion and the conservatory. Everything had his mark, his personality on it. She couldn’t leave here.

Without putting the glass down she struggled to pull the files and photographs out of her bag and slapped them onto the coffee table. She would read through them and make notes until she couldn’t keep her eyes open, then force herself to go to bed. At least she wouldn’t be thinking of James and the heartache of losing him.

On the mantelpiece was a silver-framed photograph of her and James on their wedding day. He looked very handsome in his dark grey suit. His brilliant smile lit up his face and he had the warm blue eyes of a young Paul Newman. He had a few laughter lines but they added character. He was gorgeous. There was no other word for it. Next to him was the grinning Matilda in a floor-length white dress. It was a simple yet elegant design. She held onto her husband and beamed into the camera. She was happy. They were both happy.

Now the life had gone out of Matilda. Her skin was grey and her hair lifeless. She couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled like that. She looked up at the photograph and her whole body ached. She missed him so much.

Her body was lethargic but she had work to do. She lifted herself up The files and photographs she’d taken out of her bag were mingled together into a confused mess on the coffee table. How apt, she thought. The whole case was a mess, her head was a mess.

Pushing aside the files, she found Charlie Johnson’s book and opened it at random. She leaned back on the sofa and read aloud. As long as she couldn’t hear the sound of the ticking clock she wouldn’t feel quite so alone.

‘Chapter six: Brotherly Love?’ She looked at her wedding photo once again as if she was reading to her dead husband. ‘The age gap between Matthew and Jonathan was obviously problematic. According to neighbours, the brothers rarely interacted and were never seen together. The Harkness parents were busy with their successful careers, and, although they had a nanny when Matthew was growing up, there wasn’t one for Jonathan.

‘Jonathan was often left with neighbours after school if his parents were working late or was enrolled in several after-school clubs. During the school holidays he was anywhere but at home. Just how much input did Stefan and Miranda have in Jonathan’s upbringing?

‘Neighbour Aoife Quinn, although a close friend of the Harkness family, did not leap to the defence of Stefan and Miranda when the subject of their parenting skills was brought up. “They were a brilliant couple, hardworking and totally dedicated to their careers. However, I think having Jonathan was a mistake. Miranda never said as much, but reading between the lines, he was an accident, and an abortion would not have looked good for her career.”

‘I wonder if Jonathan has read this,’ Matilda asked aloud. ‘I bloody hope not. Imagine reading that you were a mistake. Poor sod.’

She poured herself another glass of vodka and downed the double shot in one gulp. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sniffled. She was crying. She wasn’t crying for her husband though, she was crying for Jonathan Harkness; a man she was yet to meet, yet a man she had a great deal of sadness for.

Despite never wanting children, for a split second, as she looked into her husband’s beaming face, she wondered what they would have been like as parents. She had never considered herself maternal, but if she had known James was going to die after five years of marriage she would have spent her whole married life pregnant, making sure she had something of him to cherish.

Bloody hell! Was everything going to bring her back to James and her sad pathetic excuse for a life? She flicked through the paperback and stopped at a different section.

‘Chapter Eight: Alternative Theories,’ she began again. ‘Despite Stefan Harkness being a leading authority in cancer drug trials in the western world his work often came under close scrutiny and caused a great deal of controversy. By the time he was thirty he had already been before three government select committees to justify his work.

‘At the time of his death in December 1994, news of his current work was well known in the scientific field and by interested parties. The fact he was testing on animals was no secret and he had received threats to halt his work or “suffer the consequences of your deplorable actions” as one rather prosaic letter written in pig’s blood said.

‘In the weeks leading up to his death Stefan Harkness had received abusive phone calls, anonymous letters, and a box containing the rotting corpses of three dozen mice was delivered to the house addressed to the Harkness children. Despite extensive investigations by South Yorkshire Police none of the activists, who eventually held up their hands to sending the hateful mail, were considered credible suspects for the double murder.’

Matilda put the book face down on the sofa next to her and looked up at the wedding photo. ‘Well we knew that didn’t we James? This Charlie Johnson bloke certainly seems to be a font of knowledge. I wonder who his source was.’

Should she read on or have another drink of vodka? She looked from the bottle to the book and back again. The alcohol won.

Jonathan Harkness sat in his reading room. He was rereading On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill for the third time. He was just over halfway through.

Next to him on the small table was a large mug of tea – milk with one sugar – and two digestive biscuits on a square of kitchen roll. He had been reading for over two hours.

The door to the room was closed and the only light came from the thin standard lamp, which was behind the wing chair and loomed over him.

When he came to the end of the chapter he looked up at the mass of books that surrounded him. He was content here. He was safe in this room. In reality his mind was diseased, and forever tortured him with paranoia and depressive thoughts, but in this room he was safe. He could live the life of the characters, interact with them, help Dalziel and Pascoe solve the crime. His lips spread into a smile and then he returned to the paperback and continued reading.

Directly above, Maun Barrington was rereading a story in the local newspaper. It had arrived at lunchtime. She was shocked by the amount of space the paper had given to the story, surely it didn’t warrant a whole page – it was just a house being demolished.

She went over the conversation she’d had with Jonathan in the foyer a couple of hours ago. He couldn’t wait to get away from her. Why? She shrugged off her pointless reverie. He was bound to have a lot on his mind with tomorrow’s events. She was still puzzled as to why he didn’t want her going with him. He always sought her advice.

She decided to attend anyway, keep out of sight so Jonathan didn’t see her. She wanted to be there. She wanted to see his emotions; the agony, the relief, the heartache and the horror so she could be there for him later when he came home from work. She had a strange unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was going to happen. Change was coming. Whatever it was, she hoped she wouldn’t lose Jonathan because of it. She couldn’t cope with losing anyone else.

Chapter 9

Overnight the temperature had plunged to a perishing minus five degrees. By 6 a.m. everything was covered in an icy white glaze. Pavements were slippery underfoot; frost crunched under the weight of tyres; and the dead, frozen body of a man was discovered behind an industrial bin in Sheffield City Centre.

A man on his way to work, taking a short cut to the tram stop on West Street, stumbled across the body next to an 80s themed nightclub on Holly Lane. He dialled 999 then waited impatiently for uniformed officers to arrive. By the time they did, not only was the witness hopping from foot to foot to keep warm but he was thoroughly pissed off at being late for work on employee evaluation day.

A tall constable tentatively made his way to the steel bin. A pair of legs was sticking out from behind but nothing more. The closer he went more of the body was revealed. When he reached the face he quickly clamped a leather gloved hand over his mouth. It looked as if the victim’s head had exploded.

The call came through to the MIT and was answered by DS Sian Mills. When she relayed the news to Acting DCI Hales he almost punched the air with excitement.

‘Grab your coat and a DC and let’s go,’ he said to Sian. He was out of the door before he’d finished talking.

At fifty, Ben Hales had never quite reached his full potential and didn’t know why. He was a well-built man with plenty of padding around the middle and dark salt-and-pepper hair cut short. His personality was prickly, which, if you didn’t know him, could be mistaken for severe. Nobody in work knew him. A fact that he didn’t care about.

‘Blimey, what’s got into him?’ Faith Easter said. She’d nearly been sent flying by a departing Ben Hales as she entered the room.

‘Don’t bother taking your coat off. Uniform have found a body. Come on.’

It wasn’t far from South Yorkshire Police HQ to the murder site and there was no great rush, but Hales had his foot firmly pressed on the accelerator all the way there. Sian was in the passenger seat sending a text to DS Aaron Connolly letting him know where they all were, while Faith was in the back seat holding on tight to the door strap.

Hales pulled the Audi up at a dodgy angle and jumped out of the car. The two uniformed officers had been joined by a further five who were busy securing the area with blue and white police tape. A small crowd of perverse onlookers had already gathered.

This was exactly what Hales had been hoping for; an active murder investigation he could get his teeth into and show his bosses who had the ability to lead the Murder Investigation Team. He clapped his hands together as he approached the uniformed officers.

‘Right then, who was first on the scene?’

‘We were, sir. I’m PC Ashcroft and this is PC Rutherford.’

‘What have we got?’

‘A dead man behind the industrial bin. He’s been very badly beaten.’

‘Who found him?’

‘A passer-by on his way to work.’ He looked at his notebook. ‘Jason Patterson. I’ve got his address and contact details.’

‘Doctor?’

‘On his way, sir.’

‘Forensics?’

‘On their way, sir.’

‘Excellent. I want you to keep a record of everyone who comes onto the scene and don’t let anyone in who shouldn’t be. That’s anyone from the press and anyone who isn’t anything to do with analysing a dead body. Do you understand?’

‘Yes sir,’ he replied through chattering teeth.

‘Good lad. Also, tape off this entire area, not just the alleyway, and get the crowd moved further back.’

‘Yes sir,’ he repeated.

Hales turned to Sian and Faith, a smile on his face. ‘Let’s take a look at him then.’ The women exchanged a puzzled glance.

Holly Lane was a small alleyway behind the City Hall. It was mostly used as a cut-through for people to get to the tram stop or the amenities on West Street. There was a spacious car park to the left and a nightclub to the right.

The body was undisturbed. Hales had no intention of disturbing him either, not until the doctor and forensics had been. If he wanted to impress the ACC he needed to do everything by the book. Now was not the time for cutting corners or making mistakes.

Hales bent down to get a good look at the victim. He screwed his face up at the state of him; his features were broken, eyes swollen shut, nose smashed, jaw shattered. His hair was matted with frozen blood. Whoever had killed him had been relentless in their attack. This was a vicious crime and Hales could not be more pleased.

‘Faith, find out who runs the nightclub. I want CCTV footage and I want to know what time they were open until last night and whether they had any trouble. Also, there’s a car park across the road, I want CCTV from that too and check with the City Hall. I want to know what show was on and the time it finished and, again, CCTV from the front and back of the building. Get uniform to help you.’

‘Yes sir.’ She turned quickly almost hitting Sian in the face with her ponytail.

‘This shouldn’t be too difficult,’ Hales said to Sian. He smiled. ‘We’re slap bang in the middle of the city centre surrounded by nightclubs and a big concert venue. CCTV should solve this before lunch if we’re lucky. A badly beaten-up male outside a nightclub; no prizes for guessing where he’d come from.’

Sian had her arms wrapped around her and held herself rigid with the cold. She frowned at her boss.

‘We’ll wait until forensics have been, run his prints and if he’s not on the system I want you to have a look through missing persons. Also, give the station a call; ask if anyone has reported anyone missing in the last day or so.’

‘It’s a bit early for that isn’t it?’ Sian asked, teeth chattering.

‘Time is of the essence Sian. By the way, I’d invest in a decent winter coat if I was you.’

Sian turned away. An energetic Acting DCI Hales was unsettling to watch. He was usually monosyllabic and rigid. Where had his sudden animation come from?

A deep red Vauxhall Astra pulled up and out stepped the pathologist, Dr Adele Kean. They made eye contact straight away.

‘Morning Sian, bloody freezing isn’t it?’ she said, quickly taking off her coat and opening the boot to find a blue protective suit.

‘On days like these you just want to wrap yourself in the duvet and forget about work.’

Adele smiled. ‘What have you got for me then?’

‘A dead male, beaten to death by the looks of him. I hope you’ve not had a fry-up for breakfast as you’ll be bringing it straight back up.’

‘I’m a good girl; Greek yogurt and blueberries for me.’

‘Really?’

‘No chance. It’s two coffees and a slice of toast. I’m never in the mood to eat first thing but I have to choke something down. I can’t leave the house on an empty stomach.’

‘My husband’s the same. He’d throw up in the car if he didn’t have breakfast.’

‘Who’s in charge?’

‘Acting DCI Hales,’ Sian said with the emphasis on acting.

‘Did you see Matilda yesterday?’

‘Yes briefly. It’s good to have her back. Pity she’s not back in charge of the murder team. It would have been nice to see her take this on.’

‘Well, it’s not for long. You’ll have her back with you soon.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Not a fan of your current leader?’ she asked as she was struggling into a blue forensics suit and a pair of plastic overshoes.

‘I don’t know what’s got into him this morning but he’s bouncing around like a five-year-old.’

‘Oh great that’s all we need.’

Adele grabbed her case from the boot and went over to Hales, who was still standing at the edge of the alleyway looking down at the body.

‘Good morning,’ she said in her usual cheerful manner.

He was startled from his thoughts and quickly turned around. ‘Oh, good morning Adele. You were quick.’

‘The call came through while I was on my way in so I detoured.’

‘Well prepare yourself for a nasty one. All I can tell you is that he’s male. I can’t give you an age range or a description, he’s been roughed up pretty badly.’

‘If you want to come with me you’ll need to suit up. Sian,’ she called over to the waiting, and shivering DS, ‘can you bring some footplates from the back of my car?’

‘I’m guessing whoever designed these suits were the same people who created maternity clothing,’ Sian said as she approached the pathologist and handed over the aluminium footplates.

Adele dotted them around the alleyway, finishing directly in front of the victim.

‘Stick to the plates, please,’ she said as Hales, now suited up, entered the mouth of the alley.

She then stepped forward, surveying the surrounding area before looking down at the victim. She took a deep breath and then pulled the mask up over her mouth and nose. Hales was not kidding; he looked like he’d been through a blender.

‘I think it’s safe to say he was killed here,’ she said, pointing at the frozen globules of blood on the walls. She lifted up the left hand and had a good look at the fingernails. ‘They’re nice and neat so he took care of himself. There are some good pieces of skin under here too, whether they belong to him or the attacker I don’t know but we’ll definitely be able to get a match from them.’

‘Excellent,’ Hales said to himself. ‘Time of death?’

‘That’s not going to be easy seeing as it was bloody cold last night. I don’t think it got above freezing all day. He could have been here since ten o’clock last night or just an hour.’

‘Can’t you be more accurate?’

‘Not right now. Rigor mortis has been given a helping hand by the weather. I’ll take temperature readings but he’s stone cold.’ She shivered. The thin plastic suit she had over her clothes was not designed to withstand such cold temperatures. She couldn’t wait to get into her office and turn on the heater. ‘I’ve got my assistant coming. She’ll take some photographs, we’ll get him bagged, then back to the lab and we’ll take some samples. Give me a couple of hours and come by for the PM.’

‘Thank you, Adele.’

Hales turned his back on the crime scene and headed for the Audi. He tried to suppress his grin but this could not have worked out better. Last night he had hardly slept. Lying next to his snoring wife his mind had been a whirl of what was going to happen to him and his career now Matilda Darke was back. He’d had the creeping feeling he’d get a phone call over breakfast from the ACC telling him to return to the CID incident room, but now he could relax, for the time being. This was a fresh murder scene, and, judging by the gossip that had been doing the rounds at the station yesterday, Matilda was in no fit state to lead one. This would be his. All his. And, fingers crossed, so would every other suspicious death that happened within the South Yorkshire boundary.

Chapter 10

Matilda woke with a vodka-induced headache and had to force herself out of bed. It was only her second day back at work but it felt like she’d never been away, and not in a good way. As she dragged herself to the shower she wished she had never gone back.

The force of the hot water stung her aching body. She was tender and every muscle seemed to be screaming out in pain. She ignored the cries to return to bed and allowed the water to cascade down her body. To continue the torture she quickly turned the temperature from hot to as cold as it could go and the needles became sharper. She soon woke up and once again her brain was alert and ready.

Like yesterday she had to force down her breakfast of an extremely strong coffee and a slice of toast before dressing and leaving the house. She had sent a text to DC Fleming the night before, saying she would pick him up and they would go straight to the Harkness house in Whirlow to watch the demolition. It was pointless going into the station first. Or did she just want to avoid seeing her replacement, Acting DCI Ben Hales?

When she reached Rory’s terraced house in Woodseats she pulled up and beeped for him. Within a minute the front door was pulled open and he bounded out of the house like a puppy going for his morning walk. She heard him shout a cheerful goodbye behind him and head towards the car. He had a silly grin on his face. She tried to remember a time when she was as happy about her job as he seemed to be, but the memory didn’t appear to exist.

‘You’re looking chirpy this morning,’ she said, indicating she was about to pull out into traffic, before Rory had secured his seatbelt.

‘Well for the first time in I can’t remember how long I had an early finish yesterday. I cooked a lovely meal, then we curled up on the sofa and watched a DVD together.’

She glanced at him and noticed his smile was even wider. She could guess the lovely evening had continued into the bedroom. She would also bet they didn’t get to the end of the DVD.

Underneath his Jonathan Creek duffel coat Rory was dressed smartly in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and light blue tie. Matilda was wearing the same navy suit as yesterday; the trousers were creased, and there was a stain on a lapel she couldn’t remember getting. Compared to her subordinate she felt like a bag lady.

‘Another cold one this morning,’ Rory said, making conversation after a silence of a couple of minutes. ‘Forecast said there could be some snow by the weekend.’

Matilda didn’t reply. She didn’t feel as if she had anything to add to the pointless dialogue.

‘What’s the plan for today then, after the demolition I mean?’

‘Well I thought we’d track down Jonathan Harkness. He’s the only relative living in the area. We’ll tell him we’re having another look at the case and see what he has to tell us.’

‘And if he doesn’t have anything new to tell us?’

‘Then we work the file. There has to be something in there that someone’s missed.’

‘Do you think he’ll remember something new twenty years down the line?’

‘I’ve absolutely no idea. The brain is a complicated organ. It can block things out to protect a person from whatever horrors they’ve experienced or it can torture them by repeating it over and over.’

‘Fingers crossed for the last option then. Let’s just hope it hasn’t screwed him up too much.’

‘Well I’m expecting him to be a complete basket case. Anything different will be a bonus.’

By the time they arrived at the scene in Whirlow a huge hydraulic excavator was being slowly driven off a low-loader. There was a team of more than a dozen workers in HI-Vis safety gear milling about preparing to begin.

The house had been surrounded by large plywood sheets to stop potential thieves or squatters gaining access and this was now being taken down. Two members of the team donned hard hats and entered the property via the back door. They were to give the house a final sweep just to make sure a homeless person wasn’t taking shelter, before the house was pulled down.

Matilda pulled up a few hundred yards away from the house. From the back seat she lifted a pile of papers: the reports she had taken home and Charlie Johnson’s book, which she was almost halfway through, and began flicking through them.

‘I was talking to my fiancée about the Harkness case last night and she had a look on the Internet about it while I was in the shower. She thinks Matthew may have a part to play in the murders.’

‘Does she?’ Matilda replied, not paying much attention.

‘It makes sense if you think about it. He wasn’t in the house at the time and he went missing soon afterwards. It was days before he was found and he had no alibi.’

‘He had no motive either.’

‘All kids have a motive for killing their parents, no matter how tenuous.’

She wondered whether that was his opinion or that of his fiancée’s. She didn’t say anything.

‘Maybe they’d had an argument; maybe he was jealous of the attention his parents paid towards his younger brother.’

‘The attack was frenzied. Whoever killed them had nothing but hatred for them. It would have had to have been a pretty big argument for him to do that. Besides, if he was jealous of his brother, why not kill him too?’

Rory shrugged.

‘Read chapter ten,’ Matilda said, handing Rory the paperback. ‘Apparently, Jonathan was an accident. His parents rarely had time for him. There was no reason for Matthew to be jealous.’

Extract from A Christmas Killing by Charlie Johnson.

CHAPTER THREE: WHERE’S MATTHEW?

The police arrived quickly on the scene and Jonathan was escorted off the premises under the cover of a large blanket to shield him from the horror of seeing his parents in such a state. He was taken to Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital where he was assessed for injuries. At this point, he had not spoken a single word to anyone and police believed him to be in shock.

There was someone missing from this scene though; fifteen-year-old Matthew Harkness. He had not returned home from school but gone straight to the home of best friend, Philip Clayton, to play a computer game. He left later than usual and used Philip’s mountain bike to cycle home. The journey should have only taken ten minutes but he didn’t make it, and there was no sign of a bike. After interviewing neighbours, police launched a manhunt to locate Matthew. Nobody had seen Matthew since he left for school earlier that day. The back gardens of all the houses in the road, along with nearby parks, were searched immediately. However, it was dark and little could be seen. A full-scale search was to begin the following morning as soon as it was light enough. Fears were growing among police that Matthew could have been kidnapped by the killer(s), though this was never made public. A sharp frost overnight and freezing temperatures hampered the search for Matthew. Police turned out to search back gardens once again and the local community helped out however they could. Police spent the whole day searching the dense Ecclesall Woods before moving on to Ran Woods. Nothing was found. The search then moved to nearby parks including Abbeydale Park, Millhouses Park and Abbeydale Golf Course. Again, there was no sign of the missing teenager, or the red and black mountain bike belonging to his friend. By the time darkness fell on the first full day of the investigation Matthew was still listed as a missing person and no ransom demands had been made. All day the temperature had not risen above freezing. Police feared for Matthew’s safety. Wherever he was, he was obviously in danger from either his kidnappers or the severe cold weather.

‘I just find it odd that he went missing,’ Rory said. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t do that unless you had something to hide.’

‘According to Matthew, when he was eventually found,’ she began, casting her eye down his statement, ‘he had come home and saw the police cars with flashing lights outside the house. He thought his parents had called them as he was late coming home and he just panicked and continued cycling.’

‘But his parents weren’t thick; they’d have just called the parents of the friend he was staying with. They wouldn’t call the police.’

‘His parents weren’t thick but maybe he was.’

‘I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. He was missing for three days before just turning up out of the blue. If he was worried about getting into trouble for being late home he would have stayed away just the one night, not for three, not in the middle of winter.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Matilda began, flicking through the three-page statement, ‘it doesn’t go into a great deal of detail. It doesn’t even say where he was hiding, for crying out loud. All it says is that he was hiding in the woods. Sheffield is one of the greenest cities in the country; it’s surrounded by bloody woods.’

‘Is Matthew still in Sheffield?’

‘No. He moved away as soon as his education was finished. I’ve no idea where he is now. We’ll have to try and track him down. These case notes are pitiful.’

She closed the file in frustration and looked up as the roaring sound of the hydraulic excavator slowly moved onto the plot of the Harkness house. It was demolition time.

A few nosy neighbours had congregated. They were dressed appropriately in long coats, hats, and scarves. They had their hands firmly in their pockets to keep warm or their arms wrapped tightly around their bodies. Some people didn’t care about the cold; they just wanted to be witness to an event that would go down in local history.

From a nearby Mondeo a young man in his early thirties wearing an open-necked shirt, faded blue trousers, and scuffed black shoes climbed out from behind the steering wheel. From the passenger seat, a gruff-looking man close to retirement hoisted himself out with a large camera around his neck.

‘Bloody press,’ Matilda said under her breath.

‘Are we getting out?’ Rory asked.

‘No I don’t…’ she stopped when her eyes fell on something of interest. She quickly scanned through the reports in front of her once again and found what she was looking for: a photograph. She looked up through the windscreen then down at the picture again.

‘Do you reckon that’s Jonathan Harkness?’ She showed Rory the photo of an eleven-year-old Jonathan in school uniform. He was looking directly into the camera lens and had a forced smile on his face. It was obviously a school photograph and he didn’t seem too pleased to be having it taken.

Rory looked at the picture then up at the young man in the black coat who was standing away from the crowd on his own. ‘It looks like him. Same build, same hair.’

‘Come on then.’ She whipped off her seatbelt and jumped out of the car.

Shortly after arriving at his childhood home, Jonathan saw the journalist and photographer climbing out of their car. He hoped they wouldn’t recognize him and lifted up his coat collar. He was standing alone, away from the crowd of ghoulish onlookers, but wondered if this might draw attention to the reporter so he slowly edged back to join them.

As soon as the large hydraulic excavator made its way onto the overgrown garden where he used to play, his attention was firmly aimed at the home he was born in.

His heart was beating loudly in his ears and he took a deep breath. He was dressed for the weather, wrapped up in scarf and gloves, but he was shivering underneath his thick winter coat. His mouth was dry and he swallowed painfully a few times. He watched as the arm was slowly raised a little higher than the roof. The bucket was angled and just as it made contact with the house he closed his eyes tight. The crunching sound caused him to jump. He opened his eyes and saw the large hole in what used to be his bedroom.

A large section of the front of the house was soon torn down and for the first time in more than twenty years, daylight penetrated the rooms. He looked up at the damaged building and saw the blue and white striped wallpaper that adorned the walls of his sanctuary.

He hadn’t realized how much this was going to affect him. As soon as he saw the wallpaper he could feel a lump in his throat and tears gathering in his eyes. He was hoping for a cathartic experience, closure maybe, but he couldn’t cope with this. It was killing him. The crowd of gawkers around him gossiped among themselves; their voices fighting with the noise from the demolition site.

‘That used to be such a beautiful house. What a waste.’

‘That place always gave me the creeps. It should have been torn down years ago.’

‘Can you imagine what went on in there?’

‘I wonder what those poor kids are up to these days.’

‘I used to have that wallpaper in my back bedroom.’

As Jonathan walked away he was stopped by a tired-looking woman and a sharply dressed young man behind her. He wondered if they were more reporters. Bloody vultures.

‘Are you Jonathan Harkness?’ Matilda asked.

‘Who?’ His voice was gruff, his throat still dry.

‘You are aren’t you? Don’t worry; I’m not from the newspapers.’ She fished her ID from her inside pocket. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Matilda Darke, this is Detective Constable Rory Fleming. We’re from the Murder Investigation Team at South Yorkshire Police. Would it be possible to have a few words?’

Jonathan looked from Matilda to Rory then back again. ‘I’m sorry but I’m about to go to work.’

The sound of a wall collapsing behind them broke their concentration. Both Matilda and Rory looked in the direction of the house while Jonathan closed his eyes. The agony of grief and terror was etched on his face.

‘I understand this is a very difficult day for you Mr Harkness but we’d just like a brief chat.’

‘I don’t have anything to say.’

He looked sad. His face was pale and his blue eyes dull. He had the look of someone on the brink of tears.

‘We’re having another look at the case.’

‘What?’ Now Matilda had his full attention. He looked genuinely shocked. ‘Why?’

‘We review cold cases every so often, and with the demolition we’ve decided to take another look.’

‘Is there new evidence?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘Look, between the book and your archives you pretty much have all the information there is.’

‘You’re right, there is plenty of information, but there’s one thing missing: your statement.’

Jonathan looked up from the ground and into Matilda’s eyes. ‘My statement?’

‘I know you went mute after everything that happened, it’s hardly surprising, but your statement is vital to finding out the truth.’

‘I really don’t think…’

‘Mr Harkness,’ Matilda’s voice took on an edgier tone. ‘This is an official police investigation. We need your statement. Would you like to come down to the station now?’

The look on Jonathan’s face at the mention of going to the police station was one of horror. His eyes widened, his mouth opened a little and his bottom lip quivered. He took a deep breath as if to steady his nerves.

‘If you don’t feel comfortable at the station we can do it at your home. Your choice.’

Behind him the side of the house collapsed and exposed the living room. Jonathan turned to look at the wreckage and quickly screwed his eyes shut again.

‘We’ll go back to my flat.’

The crowd of onlookers had grown, some were even filming it on their mobile phones. One member in particular stood out from the rest as she was the only person not interested in the demolition. She took a step back and looked at Jonathan talking to a good-looking young man with shiny hair and a dishevelled woman who could win first prize in a Vera Stanhope lookalike competition. She had enough experience of police officers in her time to recognize who they were. What were they doing here? Surely a house being demolished didn’t warrant police interest, especially officers in plain clothes. The conversation between the three of them seemed very tense. She was itching to know what they were saying but didn’t dare risk getting closer in case she was noticed. Maun waited until they had disappeared around the corner before following.

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