Close to the Bone

Book 2: Detective Megan Thomas

by Susan Wilkins

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

‘Fast paced… I have to admit I struggled to put this book down, grabbing five minutes here and there just to finish it!… Fantastic read, would definitely recommend!’ Stardust Book Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Detective Megan Thomas’s latest case is far too close to home… A woman is found on a beach, weeping over her missing child. A businessman’s broken body is found on the floor of a luxury flat. Detective Megan Thomas thought that moving to the beautiful coastline of Devon would be quieter than her undercover life in London. But the cases she’s working on prove that evil can strike anywhere, and she’s determined to put it right. But when her sister is identified as a key suspect, Megan faces a terrible dilemma: her family, or the truth? And when it seems the only way to find answers is to confront a killer, how much is she willing to risk? Fans of Melinda Leigh, Angela Marsons and Kathy Reichs will be hooked by this incredibly gripping mystery thriller. Readers love Susan Wilkins’ writing: ‘ Absolutely brilliant!! From start to finish I was kept totally gripped. Full of twists and turns… Susan Wilkins is an amazing author and I can't wait for the next one.’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Fast-paced, tightly plotted… Another dose of brilliant crime fiction. More please!’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Compulsive and thoroughly captivating… I found myself unable to tear myself away and as a consequence read it all in a single tense sitting… Bags of suspense and action wrapped up in a thrillingly plotted story’ Reader’s Retreat, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Gripped from start to finish… I am in awe.’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Addictive and enthralling!… Devoured this book in just one sitting, it was that addictive.’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘I absolutely devoured Close to the Bone… gripping, thrilling and draws you straight in… impossible to put down.’ Goodreads Reviewer ‘My favourite read of 2020… I was engaged from the very first chapter… Brilliant ’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Well, another success by Susan Wilkins!!… an action-packed crime thriller that will keep you turning the pages.’ Bookworm86 ‘ Extremely compulsive… My attention didn’t waver for a second and I read it in one sitting ’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Addictive, gripping, twisty… How this story unfolds is just brilliant ’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Loved this… If you like Vera you will love this book. Brilliant’ Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: September 8, 2020

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 322

Sample

He laughs. Of course he does. Stupid bitch. Is she actually threatening him? He’s bigger and stronger than her; it’s not a fight she can win. She must know that.

‘I get it,’ he says. ‘You’re upset.’

Her body is rigid with rage, her breathing shallow. That may be an understatement.

He lets his gaze stray to the vast plate glass window. The evening sun is sinking over the harbour. A view that certainly justifies the £200k price tag. The door to the balcony stands open and he can feel the light spring breeze. It’s warm for early May. The sharp tang of seaweed, the strains of off-key karaoke float up from a quayside bar. When this place is launched on the market in a few days he’s going to make a mint. Six luxury apartments. His vision, his graft made this happen. No way will he let the silly cow spoil it with her jealous nonsense.

Perhaps he should just give her a slap. Remind her who’s boss. That’ll bring her to her senses.

But instead he decides to smile. He’s a man of property. He can afford to be benevolent.

‘I’ve got a bottle of bubbly in the fridge. Not the cheap stuff. Got it from my wine club. I was saving it to celebrate the first sale. But let’s crack it open now, take it outside, watch the sunset. What do you say? There’s no need for this.’

He gives her his aww-shucks boyish grin. I know I’ve been naughty again, but you know I’m really a lovable lad. For most of his forty-three years this has worked with the women in his life, from his mother onwards.

He opens the fridge. High-end Bosch fridge-freezer, included in the asking price. The show flat has been dressed with a selection of cool contemporary furniture to help the punters imagine what it would be like to live there. According to the agent this adds £30k to the value, so worth the effort.

He takes out a bottle of Prosecco. Beaded moisture on the glass. He brandishes it with a smile. Women need a firm hand but charm goes a long way and costs nothing. This was his father’s advice to him as a teenager and over the years it’s proved useful.

The target market for the development is London-based, affluent second home owners looking for a luxury bolthole in Devon. Local yobs need not apply. He had a bit of hassle from the town council with their usual guff about affordable housing for locals. There was a public meeting at which some of the rougher elements got to vent their spleen. But he’d seen them off with a couple of strategically placed backhanders: to the chair of the planning committee, lovely lady who knew the form, and the senior planning officer.

He lifts two elegant champagne flutes off the shelf. And as he turns back to face her he sees it coming straight at him. Dark, blurry, fast. Cold steel. Thwack! Right in the middle of his forehead. Instant pain.

He staggers backwards, head spinning. The glasses fall and shatter. He grabs the granite-topped kitchen counter for support. The second blow is to the temple. He lashes out, makes a grab for her throat. But she skips away out of his reach. He lurches sideways. What is it? A hammer? Where the hell did it come from? She’s hitting him with a hammer!

The pain is excruciating. His stomach heaves and he vomits on the floor.

‘For Chrissake!’ he wails. He raises his forearm to ward off further blows.

She steps back. He sinks to his knees. Is it over?

‘You listening now?’ she says.

What’s she taking about? His head is throbbing. He can hardly think.

‘I didn’t mean to…’

He tastes bile in his gullet. His vision swims. He’s going to puke again. Her face looms over him, tight and red and furious.

Her arm goes up and he sees it. A lump hammer. The square-ended carbon steel head. The builders must have left it, stupid bastards, he’ll have to have a word. This is the last lucid thought he has.

The third blow cracks open his skull.

Megan Thomas watches the dark, steamy liquid trickle into the cup. First coffee of the day, always the best. Scout, her sister’s dog, a Border collie-Labrador cross, comes trotting into the kitchen. He heads straight for her and plonks down at her feet, tail wagging. He gazes up at her, she gazes down at him.

‘You can’t fool me, buddy. You’ve had breakfast. And looking at me with those big brown eyes—’ She laughs. ‘Okay, you’re right, I’m a soft touch. But don’t tell!’

She reaches for the dog treats jar as Debbie comes in.

‘Megan! He’s getting fat. You want to haul his dumpy arse up to Berry Head and throw tennis balls for half an hour, be my guest.’

‘Sorry.’ She gives her sister a sheepish look and pats the dog. ‘Coffee?’

‘No time. I’m going to be late for my cleaning job. Are the kids up?’

Megan lives with her sister’s family in Berrycombe. This was only ever a temporary arrangement when she came down from London to take up a new job. She’s a detective sergeant with Devon and Cornwall Police in one of their Major Investigation Teams. But weeks have drifted into months, her family insist they love having her and she loves being there, mostly. Finding a flat of her own remains the long-term plan but not one she’s actively pursuing.

She left London, her ex-husband and a gruelling stint working undercover, in a fragile mental state. She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder but the panic attacks have abated. She hasn’t succumbed for months. She focuses on the job and with the help of Dr Moretti, her shrink, she holds her life together.

It’s midway through spring and she’s up before dawn every day for an early morning swim. The water is still freezing so she wears a wetsuit. It’s worth the effort for the exhilaration it brings. The bouts of anxiety and doubt she suffered back in the winter have faded and she’s feeling at ease and settled in a way which would have never seemed possible a few short months ago.

Debbie sighs. ‘I hate it when Mark’s away. Everything falls apart.’ Her husband has taken a job as a skipper on a wind farm support vessel in the North Sea; the money’s good but he’s only home every other weekend.

She goes to the foot of the stairs and yells, ‘Amber! Kyle! Ruby!’

‘Listen,’ says Megan. ‘I’ll take the kids to school.’

‘Don’t spoil them, Meg. They’ll get used to it. Healthier for them to walk. Amber can take Ruby, Kyle can take himself. Their dad’s away, they’ve got to learn some responsibility.’

Megan scans her baby sister. Her eyes are hollowed out and she looks completely knackered. The holiday season is beginning. It’s the time of the year she can make some proper money so she’s juggling three jobs: bar work in the evening, cleaning and driving a delivery van.

‘What time did you get in last night?’

Debbie sighs. ‘I dunno. About one. Late licence and then we had to clear up.’

‘Okay,’ says Megan. ‘What’s the point me being here if you won’t let me help? Go take a shower. I’ll make you some toast and coffee. And I’ll make sure the kids get to school. No arguments.’

‘I thought you saw the shrink before work on a Wednesday?’

‘She’s on holiday. So I’ve got time. Jump to it.’

Debbie grins and gives her a mock salute. ‘Yes, Sarge.’

‘That’s better.’

Megan pulls up as close as she can to the school gate. She slots her small, blue hybrid car in behind a growling monster of a four-by-four. The petrolhead in her still misses her old roaring gas-guzzler. But the mantra of her new life is responsible not reckless. Mostly she manages to stick to it.

‘Cheers,’ says Kyle as he leaps out of the back door.

Amber leans across from the front seat and is about to give her aunt a peck on the cheek when the four-by-four revs its engine and starts to back straight into them. Megan hits the horn. The beast in front shudders to a halt. The driver’s door flies open and a large, shaven-headed man in shorts and a vest climbs out.

He walks up to Megan’s window and raps on it none too gently.

Megan winds it down and stares at him.

He scowls. ‘You gotta be fucking kidding me, you stupid bitch!’

‘You were about to back into us, you left me with no alternative.’

He leans forward and wags a chunky index finger. ‘You’re lucky I don’t drag you out of that stupid little tin can and then run right over it.’

Megan sighs. Amber and little Ruby, seated in the back, are watching the encounter wide-eyed.

She pulls out her warrant card and holds it up. ‘Not a good idea, sir. Because then I would have to nick you. We’re a bit short-handed at the moment. It’s starting to be a busy time. So you’d probably spend most of the day in the cells before you got processed. But if that’s what you want.’

He takes an involuntary step back, the colour visibly draining from his stubbled cheeks. Then he turns, mumbling to himself, and scurries back to his car.

‘Have a nice day,’ says Megan.

Amber hoots with glee. ‘Yes!’ She punches the air. Ruby giggles.

‘That was so cool,’ says Ruby.

Impressing the kids is childish, thinks Megan. But it still gives her a kick.

‘It could’ve gone either way,’ she says. ‘There’s a lot of angry people out there. Don’t mess with them. Best to just walk away.’ Responsible not reckless.

‘Have you ever been really scared?’ says Amber.

‘Wow! That’s a question.’ And one she doesn’t intend to answer. She isn’t about to spoil a lovely spring morning by telling her fourteen-year-old niece about how she was kept prisoner by a psychopathic gangster, trussed up in a cellar and expecting to die. Debbie doesn’t know the half of it. No one does.

‘I bet you haven’t,’ says Ruby. ‘I bet you’re really brave. Like Jessica Jones or Mystique. But braver.’

‘She doesn’t have superpowers, silly,’ says Amber.

‘A few superpowers would come in handy,’ says Megan.

‘I’d like to fly,’ says Ruby. ‘Like a bird.’

Amber giggles. ‘Then when you met a bloke like that idiot in the car you could just shit on his head.’

They all laugh.

Debbie Hayden can’t remember the last time she had a day off. Probably back in February when Mark took her out for a Valentine’s Day brunch. Snatched moments in a busy life. She loves her three children in a deep, visceral way but they’re hard work. Amber, growing up so fast, a sassy teenager but prone to unpredictable mood changes. She’ll argue about anything and everything, wearing her mother down. Kyle, on the cusp of puberty. Are boys easier? He’s always playing computer games on the internet and completely obsessed with a world she doesn’t understand. She assumes Mark does but that’s probably wishful thinking. Five-year-old Ruby is her baby and her delight. A mistake – they only ever planned to have one of each – but Ruby is smart and lovable. It’s impossible not to adore her. Debbie wonders how long that will last.

She trudges up the hill towards her first job of the day. The luxury apartment block sits in a prominent position above the town. A Victorian terrace was demolished to provide the site. The six flats are practically completed and Debbie has been hired to do the builders’ clean and prepare them for marketing. She has three days to finish the job in time for the launch weekend.

The show flat has been cleaned and is now furnished. It was a back-breaking task: hoovering, washing down every surface, hauling all the rubbish to the skip. Debbie did it on her own. The other five flats are still filmed in dust and full of decorators’ debris. There’s a lift but Greg Porter, the developer and her employer, has made it clear he doesn’t want ‘staff’ to use it. He thinks it will spoil the carpet. As a result, when she arrives, she has to cart the clunky old vacuum cleaner up several flights of stairs. Then she has to go back down for the mop, bucket and remaining cleaning materials.

She moves up and down the stairs on autopilot and thinks about her husband. She misses him and, when she’s tired and stressed, that longing becomes a physical ache. In the course of their marriage this is the first time he’s worked away for any length of time. But jobs locally have become harder to come by. The fishing industry is struggling, fewer boats competing for a limited catch. Mark is an experienced trawler skipper but the only work he can get in Berrycombe is as a deckhand. The decision for him to go and work miles from home is one they took together. The construction of wind farms around the coast is a source of lucrative jobs for someone with his skills. He’s skippering his own boat again and Debbie can see how happy that’s made him. It will also give them a chance to pay off some of their debts. But the price is separation.

She has to use her pass key to unlock the front door to flat number five. But across the corridor, the door to the show flat stands ajar. She stares at it. She wonders if the electricians are in the building. They could be. Earlier in the week Porter had them in to make sure the built-in sound systems in all the flats worked. While they tested the levels, they’d propped open the doors and blasted a couple of old disco numbers throughout the building. She’d danced round for ten minutes and remembered how much she used to enjoy going clubbing.

Back in London, when she was still a teenager, she and Megan would sometimes go out together. Those were wild times. She’d get completely wasted but knew she could always rely on her big sister to get her home. Now she seems to be galloping towards forty, her life is nearly half over, but where did it all go? Meeting Mark and falling in love, the births of her children, their first baby steps, all these things have merged into one. She finds it hard to believe how fast the years have flown by. But in herself she doesn’t feel fundamentally different. A few grey hairs, a persistent backache that she can’t shift. Nothing seems all that different.

She puts on her vinyl gloves and starts to shove handfuls of plaster dust, half-dried filler and paint-spattered rags into a black bin bag. She’s never minded hard physical work. Once her body has settled into a rhythm, her mind can drift. She was never much good at school. Debbie is a daydreamer, she needs to concentrate. That was the gist of most of her school reports, not that anyone ever read them. She liked sports of any kind. But the school she and her sister attended was a rundown London academy with few facilities. She preferred to bunk off and hang out with her friends in the park. She learnt to skateboard and for a while she was quite good. Megan gave her the board for her birthday, but then it got nicked.

It doesn’t take her long to fill two plastic sacks and she drags them out into the corridor. The door to the show flat is still open, the hinge is creaking in the breeze.

Porter has never been an easy man to work for. Truth is she hates the bastard. Tight-fisted when it comes to wages, he’s always finding extra things for her to do. Could she pop down to the kitchen shop and get a couple of champagne flutes for the show flat? She’s hired to be a contract cleaner but he treats her more like a skivvy who’s at his beck and call. He made her do that yesterday morning. It took her half an hour. Put her behind. But he just expected her to work faster to catch up. He’d given her twenty quid to pay for the glasses and examined the change she gave him suspiciously. Luckily she got a receipt.

She stares at the door to the show flat and sighs. The rest of the building is silent. If the electricians are around, they must’ve nicked off to get some breakfast. She’s the only one there, which means she has to sort this out. But she decides to leave it for now. They may come back.

She wedges open the front door to number five and starts to hoover. Then it occurs to her that when she came into the building there was no electricians’ van parked outside. In fact the newly tarmacked parking area was empty. Sod it!

Switching the vacuum cleaner off, she boots it out of the way with her foot. Anger seeps through her and that helps. Why do people like Mister Greg Porter always assume they’re a cut above? Because they’ve got loads of money? Why should that make them so special? Did that give him the right to treat her like shit?

With another sigh she heads for the show flat.

As she pushes open the door the smell hits her. Rank and putrid, it reeks of sick but there’s another, sharper smell, almost metallic. It reminds her of some butcher’s shops, where the meat is laid out on the counter.

She feels a stab of adrenaline.

The hallway is short, with only a cupboard and two other doors off it before it opens into the main room. She creeps along it. Why the need for stealth? She knows what she’s going to see.

The offices of the Major Investigation Team for South Devon are on the first floor of a repurposed office block on a small industrial estate outside Plymouth. Intended as a temporary solution in a time of cuts it has become a semi-permanent location. The lift is temperamental, the heating system unpredictable and the toilets prone to blockages.

Megan walks into the main office. Open-plan in theory, it’s crammed with extra desks. Like everyone else criminals like to go on holiday and many choose the West Country. In spring and summer the crime rate goes up with the huge influx of visitors, and resources have to be juggled to cope with it. In the last week new faces have arrived, mostly eager rookies from uniform anxious to get their teeth into some serious detective work.

Zigzagging across the room, Megan heads for her desk. The regular team is divided into two camps. The youngsters occupy one corner. Vish Prasad and Brittney Saric, once the most junior DCs, are now the most senior. Kitty, the civilian analyst, has the biggest desk, two computers and a bank of screens. Megan sits in no man’s land, next to the other DS, Ted Jennings, definitely of the older camp, and next to him is the detective inspector who is theoretically in charge of them all.

Jim Collins has recently returned from long-term sick leave. He’s always suited and booted, a punctilious old-school cop, and his presence has had a dampening impact on the office culture. His natural respect for hierarchy has been undermined by the fact he now works for a woman boss, DCI Laura Slater. But he’s sly in the ways he lets his antipathy show. The DCs skulk in their corner and keep their jokes and their energy to themselves. A couple of stern reprimands from Collins have put them in their place.

Megan gives him a smile. ‘Morning, Jim.’

He doesn’t look up from his notebook but acknowledges her with a nod. ‘Megan.’

His lack of computer skills and preference for good old pen and paper is also an issue. He treats Kitty as his PA and this has led to her stomping into Slater’s office and asking to transfer out. The DCI talked her down. She’s too valuable. But the resulting rift between the old guard and the new is an ongoing problem. Slater has arranged an IT course for Collins to bring him up to speed.

Megan knows a fragile ego when she sees one, but she can also sympathise with the new DI. He’s spent nearly two years battling prostate cancer and has opted to return to work instead of taking medical retirement. His reasons for this difficult decision are kept to himself. It could be about money but he’s in his early fifties and perhaps, like Megan, he simply didn’t know what else he’d do. The team he worked with previously has gone, only Ted remains. And the quick-thinking kids, with their lightening fingers on a keyboard, can zip round the databases at a dizzying speed. Megan finds their level of skill intimidating at times. A rapidly changing landscape with talk of facial recognition software and the avalanche of available data is challenging for everyone. For a man recovering from treatment it must feel like a mountain to climb.

Megan plonks her bag down, catches Brittney’s eye and smiles. Brittney and Kitty are having a whispered conflab about something. They’ve learnt to lie low and stay out of Collins’s sightline. Megan has discussed the situation with Slater and the boss takes the view that he has to be integrated back into the team. The role of bridge-builder is novel but Megan is trying to embrace it.

She walks over to his desk, points at his outsized Plymouth Argyle football mug and says, ‘I’m getting one. You want a refill?’

Collins looks up. His face is pale and still gaunt from the ravages of chemo. He smiles. ‘Cheers. Better make it green tea. The wife insists. Some article she read.’

Megan picks up the mug and is about to walk off when he says, ‘Isn’t Berrycombe your neck of the woods?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Just had a shout from comms. Uniforms called to a dead body at a new block of luxury flats overlooking the harbour. Head bashed in, so it looks like murder. Property developer, name of Greg Porter. You ever come across him?’

Megan shakes her head. ‘I haven’t lived there long. I don’t really know it.’

‘CSI are heading down there.’

‘The Crime Scene Manager, Hilary Kumar, is really on it. You can rely on her to be thorough.’

‘Good to know.’ He nods. There’s something creepy about the way he smiles.

But Megan smiles back. It’s like pulling teeth. A murder and Collins is up? It’s likely the boss will want Megan to hold his hand on it. The prospect doesn’t excite her.

Laura Slater comes out of the cubbyhole otherwise known as her office. The morning briefing is about to begin, curtailing any further discussion.

Megan and the boss don’t get on exactly but they understand one another. Slater comes over like a woman on a mission and most people assume that mission is to get to the top. She deploys her legal training well, knows how to deal with the lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service and give them what they need to prosecute. As a result she has one of the best batting averages in the force. Her conviction rate speaks for itself.

She stands at the front and waits for the room to settle. It doesn’t take long.

‘Okay,’ she says with her trademark chilly smile. ‘Quite a long list to get through this morning. First up, we have a potential murder in Berrycombe. Jim, you were duty DI, have you been down there?’

Collins shifts in his chair. ‘Not yet, ma’am,’ he says. He insists on calling her ma’am. ‘CSM’s gone down, thought I’d wait for their call.’

Slater consults her notes. ‘Severe trauma to the head, a lot of blood. You didn’t think to send one of the DCs straight away?’

Collins shrugs. ‘Didn’t think there was any rush. He’s not going anywhere, is he?’

Ted Jennings chuckles. A ripple of laughter runs round the room.

Collins gives Slater a smug smile. ‘Sorry, ma’am. Bit of black humour.’

But she isn’t laughing. She just stares at him. Then she says, ‘Vish, get down there now. Talk to the CSM. I’d like to know exactly what we’re dealing with. ASAP.’

Vish Prasad jumps up. ‘Yes, boss.’ He heads for the door.

Like two naughty boys at the back of the class, Collins and Jennings exchange sniggers.

Megan watches them and her heart sinks.

‘Megan,’ says Slater.

Here we go, thinks Megan. Slater will. . .