A Darker Side

by Shirley Wells

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Forensic psychologist, Jill Kennedy, has given up police work to enjoy a quiet life in the Lancashire village of Kelton Bridge, but when Martin Hayden, a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, is murdered, DCI Max Trentham, Jill's ex-colleague and ex-lover, wants her back at work. As they hunt Martin's killer, they discover that nothing is as it seems. For a start, it seems likely that Martin, not the innocent child his parents claim, wasn't above a spot of blackmail. On top of that, Martin's father isn't the distraught parent one would expect, and his mother is determined to take her own secrets to the grave. When the killer strikes again, Jill and Max find themselves in a desperate race against time...

Release date: October 11, 2011

Publisher: C & R Crime

Print pages: 7

Sample

Chapter One

Martin Hayden felt as good as he looked. And he looked very good.

Tall and slim, with overlong, silky blond hair, he walked with graceful, flowing movements. If he’d been an animal, rather than a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, he would have been a beautifully groomed Afghan hound, grace and elegance personified.

His pale skin was clear and blemish-free, apart from a fading bruise beneath his right eye. Those eyes were the azure blue of a Mediterranean sea, and were highlighted by long, curling lashes. This morning, as he began the half-mile walk from Lower Crags Farm to the bus stop, a gentle smile played around generous lips, allowing a glimpse of perfect white teeth.

His school uniform, the dark green blazer, black trousers, white shirt and green and black striped tie of Harrington High School, accentuated his long, fluid limbs. As always, his tie was worn loosely, and the neck button on his shirt was unfastened.

He knew that when he boarded the bus, the girls would gaze at him with undisguised longing. A few of the boys would, too.

He looked as if he didn’t have to try too hard. Yet try hard he did. The lane was muddy, and he took care to avoid dirtying his shoes as he walked.

He reached into his brown leather briefcase, pulled out his MP3 player, put the tiny earphones in place and hit the Play button. The Kaiser Chiefs soon had him humming along.


Long fingers strayed to the bruise beneath his eye. It was barely visible, and no longer sore, but his anger was as raw as it had been a fortnight ago when David Fielding and his fellow thugs had managed to corner him.

Martin had been outnumbered six to one, and it had only taken minutes for them to kick him to the ground and pull off his clothes.

‘Nancy boy!’ they’d taunted. ‘Queer fucking faggot!’

Tears, more from anger than anything else, had stung his eyes as they’d punched and kicked him.

When they’d finally grown bored, or scared of being caught, they’d run off, leaving Martin to pull on his clothes and stagger to the lavatories in C block to inspect the damage.

There was only a slight puffiness to one eye. It was a few hours before the bruises on his legs and ribs were visible. In the days that followed, he’d managed to laugh off his black eye as an accident on the football pitch.

‘Bastards!’ he muttered now, the memories still painfully fresh.

This morning, like every morning, his sister, Sarah, had read out his horoscope.

‘Cancer. With the new moon Marty, are you listening?’

‘I’m listening,’ he’d promised with amusement. ‘Just cut the crap, sis.’

‘Opportunity comes your way today.’

‘And that’s it?’ he asked in amazement.

‘With all the crap cut out, then yes,’ she said lamely.

Unlike Sarah, Martin didn’t believe in all that cods-wallop, but perhaps today there was something in it. But no, it was crap. Opportunity came his way every day. He made sure of it.

Today, for instance, crammed into his briefcase was a bottle of home-made wine. Nestling in the zipped compartment was a substantial amount of cocaine. It had taken a while, and a spot of blackmail, to acquire it, but it would be worth it. He’d read up on the subject. Cocaine, ingested in a sufficient quantity, could kill.

Martin Hayden was special. No one got the better of him. No one. It was a lesson David Fielding would learn the hard way.

Oh yes, revenge would taste very sweet indeed.

Chapter Two

Jill Kennedy walked into her cottage, dropped the bags containing milk, bread, the Racing Post and half a dozen tins of cat food on her kitchen table, and then spotted her mobile phone lying next to the kettle. What a relief. She’d thought she must have lost it in Burnley. Given the fact that she’d overslept and had to rush to a dental appointment, she supposed it wasn’t surprising she’d forgotten it.


She glanced at the display and saw that she had messages.

As she called her voice mail, she switched on the coffee maker.

‘Hi, it’s me.’ Me was Detective Chief Inspector Max Trentham, and the shock of hearing his voice had the hairs standing up on her arms. ‘Give me a call, will you?’

The second message had been left twenty minutes later.

‘Me again.’ Me was still Detective Chief Inspector Max Trentham. ‘Don’t you ever answer this damn thing? Give me a call, will you?’

The third message was shorter and to the point. ‘Where the devil are you?’

The fourth message had come through a matter of minutes ago. ‘OK, you win, kiddo. I’ll train a pigeon. Look out for it, will you? It’ll have a note round its neck saying call Max.’

Patience wasn’t one of Max’s virtues. Off the top of her head, Jill couldn’t name any of Max’s virtues.

She made coffee and stood at her kitchen window, the mug cradled in her hands. It would do him good to wait.

More importantly, it would give her time to recover from the shock of hearing his voice.

Lilac Cottage was as pretty as it sounded, and she adored the stunning backdrop of the Pennines that, today, stood proud and aloof in the morning drizzle. She loved her garden, too. The old lilac tree, which was possibly responsible for the cottage’s quaint name, showed no signs of life, but she knew it would come good with a little sunshine and warmth. It was the same with the clematis. At the moment, that looked like a collection of untidy twigs entangled in the trellis, yet she had been amazed to see her shed covered in dark mauve blooms throughout the summer.

Her cottage sat on the very edge of the Lancashire village of Kelton Bridge, at the end of a narrow, unlit lane. Some people had thought she would find it too remote. They couldn’t have been more wrong. She loved it.

After a holiday in Spain and then another few days on the Croatian island of Krk, it was good to be home.

It was no use; she wouldn’t settle until she knew what Max wanted. She hit the button for his number and he answered almost immediately.

‘A pigeon’s just committed suicide at my feet. D’you know anything about it?’

‘About time. Where have you been?’

Max couldn’t even count good manners among his virtues.

‘In case you’ve forgotten,’ she pointed out patiently, ‘I no longer work for the force.’

‘You said you were coming back.’

‘And I will. I just haven’t decided when. At the moment, I’m enjoying writing my ’

‘Enjoying writing? What bullshit! You’re a well-qualified, highly respected forensic psychologist who bottled out because a bloke we arrested a bloke who just happened to fit your profile hanged himself!’

Jill had no response to that. His comments shouldn’t have taken her by surprise; he wasn’t noted for keeping his views to himself and she’d heard them many times before. Perhaps what he said had a grain of truth to it . . .

‘Yes, well. What can I do for you?’ she asked briskly.

‘Where are you now?’

‘At home.’

She had more than enough work to do, and she’d planned to do it sitting in front of her fire with her copy of the Racing Post to hand.


A thought struck her and she spread her Racing Post across the kitchen table.


‘Spare me an hour, will you?’ Max asked. ‘I’m off to You’ve heard about the missing schoolboy?’

‘No.’ She’d overslept. There had been no time for breakfast, so she hadn’t listened to the local news and her car’s radio was tuned to Radio Two.

‘He’s from your neck of the woods. Martin Hayden. Do you know him?’

‘Hayden? No.’

‘Lower Crags Farm.’

‘No.’ It meant nothing to her.

‘The farm’s about, oh, five miles from you. Anyway, Martin Hayden didn’t turn up for school yesterday and I’m going to talk to his parents again. I thought you could come along.’

‘Sorry, Max, but I can’t. I’m too busy. As I’ve just told you, I’m a writer now.’

‘So you are,’ he said in a dismissive way.

It was true that she’d given up police work when Rodney Hill, wrongly arrested, had hanged himself. She’d helped them catch the right man, though. After Valentine, as the serial killer had been dubbed, had been put behind bars, Jill had considered going back to work for the force but, for the moment at least, she was happier out of it. Besides, she had a publishing contract and a screaming deadline.

She ran her fingers down the list of runners and, sure enough, Pigeon Post was running in the 2.45 at Haydock Park. At 331, it didn’t have a hope in hell. All the same . . .

‘What’s so unusual about a missing schoolboy?’ she asked. ‘Why do you want me along?’

‘I’d like to see what you make of the parents. They’re very private, to put it mildly. Something’s not right, but I’m damned if I can put my finger on it.’

‘What do you mean, not right?’

‘They’re hiding something, I’m sure of it. Come along and see them, will you?’

She expelled her breath on a sigh. Max always knew how to arouse her curiosity. ‘OK.’

‘Great. Come over to the nick, will you? I’ve got a couple of things to do and then we can go.’

It took her less than twenty minutes to drive from her-cottage to Harrington police station, and that included phoning the bookie and putting twenty quid on Pigeon Post.

She was about to walk into the building and find Max, but she changed her mind and waited in the car park. Too many people would be wanting to know why she was wasting her time writing self-help books when she could be helping to solve crimes. She’d heard it all before. Of course, there would be others who were glad that she and her mumbo-jumbo, as they called it, were safely out of the way at Lilac Cottage.

It wasn’t long before Max was striding down the steps to the car park. A sudden gust of wind flicked his tie over his shoulder so that he had to pull it back.

He was tall, well over six feet, and slim, and his hair was thick and dark. That hair was greying at the temples, giving him a distinguished air. He wasn’t the best-looking bloke on the planet, not by a long way, and Jill resented the way her stomach clenched at the sight of him.

‘Hiya!’

He flicked the remote to unlock a black Mondeo and got in. Jill had forgotten he had a new car.

‘So what happened?’ she asked as she sat beside him and fumbled for the seatbelt.

‘A seventeen-year-old, Martin Hayden, didn’t show up for school yesterday.’ Max fired the engine and pulled out of the car park. ‘He set off at the usual time and his parents assumed he’d been there all day. When he didn’t come home, they phoned one of his friends to see if he was there and it was then that they discovered he hadn’t shown. The bus driver says he hung around for a few minutes, but didn’t think anything of it when he didn’t turn up. It’s unlike him to miss school, though. Enjoys it. A bit of a swot, I gather. They called us at around seven thirty last night.’

In the confines of his car, Jill could feel herself growing more and more tense. She gave herself a strict talking to. Being with Max these days should be easy. It should have no effect on her whatsoever. She’d loved him, lived with him, been betrayed by him but that was in the past. Now, he had no effect on her. None whatsoever . . .

‘Seven thirty?’ she queried, dragging her mind back to the missing schoolboy. ‘Why not earlier?’

Max eased the car into a stream of traffic. ‘I don’t know. They seem reluctant to have us involved at all. As I said, they’re very private.’

Max drove them towards the outskirts of the town.

‘I haven’t seen you for weeks,’ he remarked. ‘How’s things?’

‘Fine.’ It was eight weeks to be precise. Eight weeks and two days. Not that she was counting. ‘You? The boys?’

‘Yeah, fine, thanks. And the boys are great.’

‘And the dogs?’

‘Yup, the dogs are good too. Your cats?’

‘Yes, they’re fine, thanks.’

Max drove in silence for a few moments.

‘Well, that seems to have covered everything.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘Fancy a shag?’

She had to bite back a laugh. Damn him. ‘Piss off, Max.’

‘I’ll take that as a no then.’

‘So where is this Lower Crags Farm?’ she asked, not giving him the satisfaction of a response.

‘Right in the middle of bloody nowhere.’

The farm was only five miles from Jill’s home village of Kelton Bridge, yet it might have been a different world. The view was similar to the one from Jill’s cottage, yet the hills, those dark, brooding Pennines, were far more imposing.

Max swung the car off the road and stopped at a large wooden gate that barred a track. On one side of the gate was a sign declaring: Lower Crags Farm. On the other side, in bigger, black print was: Private property. Keep out!

‘Very welcoming,’ Jill murmured.

She got out to open the gate and closed it as soon as Max had driven through.

‘It’s a lovely spot,’ she said as she got back in the car.

Max wasn’t impressed. ‘Give me tarmac and pavements any day.’

‘You’ve no soul, that’s your trouble.’

‘Only one spare wheel, that’s my trouble,’ he replied, swerving to avoid a pothole.

The car bumped and jolted along the rutted track for about five hundred yards before Max brought it to a stop in front of the farmhouse.

‘Who’s with them?’ Jill asked.

‘No one. When we suggested a WPC stay with them, they wouldn’t hear of it. They’re not keen on doing a televised appeal, either. George Hayden, the father, said they didn’t want their business broadcast for all the world to know, thank you very much.’

‘That’s an unusual view to take when your child’s missing.’

‘Exactly. That’s why I want to know what you make of them.’ Max glanced at his watch. ‘We’re doing all we can the search party’s set off, and the chopper’s airborne but it would be a damn sight easier with a bit of help from the parents.’

‘You don’t think he’s done a runner then? Hitch-hiked south or skived off with his mates?’

‘I’d like to,’ he said grimly, ‘but no. No, I don’t.’

Chapter Three

The farmhouse, like a couple of nearby barns, had a sad, neglected air to it. The woodwork needed a coat of paint. A couple of half barrels guarded the front door, but the plants, whatever they were, were long dead. They sat forlornly in waterlogged compost.

Max lifted a black metal knocker and banged it against the wood. Seconds later, a tiny woman in her mid-forties opened the door.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Trentham,’ Max reminded her as she stared blankly at him. ‘Harrington CID.’

She nodded, and Jill realized that her expression wasn’t lack of recognition at all. It was panic.

‘Jill Kennedy,’ she introduced herself. ‘May we come in? We’d like to ask a few questions about Martin.’

Mrs Hayden opened the door to allow them entry and they walked down a dingy and chilly hallway, and into a sitting room that was crammed with a lifetime’s collection of bric-a-brac. There were porcelain birds and animals, cheap paperweights, ashtrays, jugs, bottles and vases. It was like walking in on a church jumble sale.

The furniture leather suite, several wooden tables and a dresser was functional rather than attractive, and had seen better days. About thirty years ago.

‘Where is everyone?’ Max asked curiously.

‘George and Andy that’s my other son,’ she added for Jill’s benefit, ‘are out in the fields. George didn’t know what to do but, as he said, life goes on.’‘

And your daughter?’ Max was trying, and failing, to hide his surprise at the family carrying on as normal and leaving her alone.

‘At work,’ she said quietly.

‘She’s a hairdresser, yes?’ Max asked, sitting down.

Jill sat on a leather sofa that had cracked and worn thin through years of use. She patted the space next to her and Mrs Hayden sat beside her.

‘That’s right,’ she answered Max’s question. ‘Thursdays and Fridays are her busiest days. They used to close on Mondays but, because everyone else did the same, they stay open now and close on Wednesdays instead. Besides, there’s nothing she can do here, is there?’

Except worry with her mother.

‘Tell us about Martin,’ Jill suggested. ‘Anything you can think of. His friends, where he spends his spare time, what he’s interested in anything at all.’

Mrs Hayden was so quietly spoken that Jill struggled to hear her. Painfully thin, she was a woman who needed a good meal inside her. Her skin hung off her, and her wrists and ankles looked as if they might snap at any minute. Her hair, dark, shoulder-length and streaked with grey, was equally brittle. Her fingernails had been bitten down to the quick. She was wearing a heavy green skirt and a thick brown sweater that had worn thin at the elbows.

‘We’ve phoned everyone he knows,’ she was telling them, ‘and the headmaster is asking the boys and girls if they’ve heard anything.’ She bent forward, and began rocking back and forth, her bony hands running over equally bony knees. ‘It’s not like him to be late,’ she added vaguely. ‘He always phones. He’s a good boy.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ Max said, adding, ‘You said you’d try and find us a more recent photo.’

‘Yes.’ She sprang up, clearly glad of the activity, went to the drawer in the well-polished dresser, and took out three snaps.

‘Sarah took these at Christmas,’ she said. ‘They’re not as good as his school photo, but as I said, that’ll be eighteen months old now. I don’t know why they didn’t do one last year. It’s not as if Martin missed it. He didn’t miss a single day last year.’

Max looked at each photo in turn, nodded, and handed them to Jill.

‘Oh!’

Max, picking up on the surprise in her voice, gave her a questioning look.

‘He’s a striking young man,’ she said, gazing at the pictures.

The boy in the photo, wearing a smile that would have done Mona Lisa proud, was far more than merely striking. He was beautiful. In one snap, he was leaning against the front door to the farmhouse wearing figure-hugging jeans and a black sweater, and he had a jacket hooked on his finger to drape decorously over his shoulder.

More than beautiful, he was perfect.

In the other two photos, he was equally posed. Yes, posed. The half-smile, a knowing, secretive smile, was the same.

‘I bet he’s popular with the girls,’ Jill said lightly.

And the boys.

‘He’s very popular with everyone,’ his mother said softly.

Well aware of it, too, Jill guessed.

‘He’s a special boy,’ Mrs Hayden murmured. ‘He knows it, too,’ she added with the ghost of a smile.

Max was right; there was something unusual about this family. She was sure, too, that Mrs Hayden was keeping something to herself.

‘May I look in his room, Mrs Hayden?’ Jill asked, rising to her feet.

‘Call me, Josie,’ she said awkwardly, nodding. ‘Up the stairs first left. He shares with his brother. Andy’s the untidy one,’ she added.

Jill was pleased that Max kept Mrs Hayden Josie downstairs, telling her of everything that was being done to try and find her son.

She pushed open the bedroom door and was surprised at the size of the room. Even allowing for the sloping ceiling, there was plenty of room for two beds, wardrobes and chests of drawers. Each boy had taken one side of the room, and on Martin’s side there was a desk. A few cables, still plugged in at the wall, showed that a computer had sat on it. No doubt the police had taken that away for examination.

Jill sat at the desk and opened the drawers. They were filled with notebooks, all used for schoolwork, some sheet music, pens and pencils, and a recorder. There was nothing of interest, and nothing personal.

She gazed around her, shuddering at wallpaper dotted with white roses that must have been clinging doggedly to the walls before the boys were even born.

CDs on the shelves told her nothing. His music of choice was the same as that of most seventeen-year-olds, the sort of stuff that had indecipherable lyrics and needed to be played at ear-splitting volume.

The small bookcase held a few surprises. Why, for instance, would a seventeen-year-old boy be reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Mansfield Park was there, too, right next to The Catcher in the Rye. Perhaps they were part of his schoolwork. One by one, she took them from the shelf and flicked through the pages. Inside the copy of Mansfield Park was a handwritten inscription that said simply: Enjoy. It was signed: DL.


There was nothing personal in the room, but that didn’t surprise Jill. Max had said they were a private family, and Martin looked as far as you could tell from three photos a secretive boy. Besides, he shared the room with his older brother. Posters of bands, girls, and especially boys, would prompt ridicule.

He’s a special boy, his mother had said . . .


A vehicle drove up to the house and Jill went to the window to look out. Two men, father and son she guessed, jumped out of an ageing Land Rover. Martin’s father and brother?

The older man was stocky with thick grey hair that needed a good cut. The young one was slimmer, but fit and strong-looking, with thick dark hair. Definitely father and son. The resemblance was strong. They had the same stubborn . . .