House of Silence

Book 0: Inspector Reis

by Patricia Marques

Genres: Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

THE SECOND NOVEL FROM PATRICIA MARQUES, FOLLOWING ON FROM THE COLOURS OF DEATH

A woman's body is found in a river just outside of Lisbon. Inspectors Isabel Reis and Aleksandr Voronov identify the murder victim as Marta Nunes - a youth centre worker who, like Isabel, classifies as Gifted. Born with special abilities, the Gifted are often looked at with a certain level of suspicion.

In the search for her killer, Reis digs into Marta's past. She soon discovers that she is connected to a number of missing women. All young, all telepathic Gifted, all vanished off the face of the earth.

Marta might have been helping these missing girls, or she might have been hurting them. But Inspector Reis needs to find the truth about who killed Marta and why, and she needs to find where the missing girls go. Because some of them might still be alive out there . . .

Praise for the Inspector Reis series

'Breathtakingly original, and a captivating sense of place' Val McDermid, bestselling author of Still Life

'Compelling and original, this glints with freshness' Daily Mail

'A brilliantly inventive and twisty tale' Claire McGowan, bestselling author of The Push

'A good detective story . . . intriguing' Guardian

'A distinctive, intriguing, immersive debut' Mari Hannah, multi-award winning author of Without a Trace

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Release date: May 26, 2022

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 368

Sample

Chapter 1

Isabel hovers outside her car, thumb smoothing over the small, rumpled piece of paper with a neatly scribbled address and number written on it. She’s touched it so many times that the paper is soft now, the blue ink taking on a purple hue and bleeding into the creases.

She’s had it for weeks and today she’d woken up determined to do something about it.

Well. At least she’s got herself here.

The breeze is warm and soft, tugging at her curls. They catch on her face, and she brushes them aside.

The house is at ground-level, and cheerful looking. Not very big but painted in a soft yellow that makes Isabel think of spring. It’s ringed by a black iron fence and there’s a paved path leading up to the dark wooden door. The grass on either side of it is a vibrant green, as are the plants lining the outside of the house in heavy stone pots. She can see some chillies from where she stands, gleaming berry red.

The windows have white shutters, giving the house a touch of the fairy-tale. Warm. Inviting.

Standing here is a waste of her time.

Teeth locked together and unable to shake off the tension, she straightens away from the car and slams the driver’s door shut.

In the pocket of her light jacket, her phone goes off, the vibrations tickling against her hip.

She curses under her breath and steps back, hurries a little way down the road so she’s not standing directly in front of the house.

Voronov’s name is on her screen and she slides her thumb across it to take the call. ‘Isabel here.’

‘Hey,’ Voronov, her partner, says, ‘I went by your place so we could get breakfast.’

Isabel eyes the house and turns her back on it. ‘I had something to do. Sorry.’

‘All right. I’m heading in, want me to get you anything or are you good?’

Ever since their last case caught the media’s attention, it’s safe to say that Isabel and Voronov have had little to no action. The Chief had wanted them to fly under the radar, which has led to them being saddled with a shitload of administrative work and dealing with petty crime.

And though Isabel is grateful for not having to deal with a major case while trying to manage the escalation of her powers, it’s got to the point where she would rather have a tough case on her hands, so she doesn’t have to focus on how it’s starting to feel more and more as if she’s losing her mind.

‘Actually—’ but before she can finish, her phone buzzes again and she pulls it away from her face to see who is trying to reach her now. It’s the Chief. ‘Aleks,’ she says, ‘the Chief is trying to call me.’ Even as she says it, a message lights up the screen.

‘Yes. I just got something now.’

She checks the message.

 

I need you and Voronov in Cascais ASAP. Call me on your way there.

 

The message is followed by the location.

Isabel sighs and puts the phone back up to her ear. ‘Did you see that?’

On Voronov’s end, Isabel hears voices and the sound of heavy steps.

‘I did. I’ll head out now.’

‘Traffic shouldn’t be too bad right now.’ She flicks a glance at her watch. ‘I can make it in an hour. Less if I break a few rules.’

‘Please don’t,’ Voronov says, ‘I’ll get started while I wait for you.’

‘See you there.’

Isabel casts one last look at the house and heads back to her car. She tosses the crumpled paper into the glove compartment and sits back in the driver’s seat, letting her head rest for a moment, her eyes closed.

Another day.

Just one day at a time, Isabel. That’s all she has to focus on right now.

One day at a time.

She dials Chief Bautista’s number and starts the car.

 

The abandoned fishing port in Cascais sits on the river’s edge.

It’s a large squat building overlooking the small port. The windows are covered in so much dust that the glass has turned a muddied grey, barely reflecting the light. Some of them have been smashed in and left only with jagged points, giving the impression that they’re yawning open when you peer at them. The brightness of the early morning sun waters the creepiness down.

Still, Isabel wouldn’t want to be around here at night-time.

There’s a tiny pier leading out to the water. It’s low tide and the pier stands about four or five feet above the waterline. A small boat is tethered to it, partially embedded in the visible soft sand, water lapping gently at it from the other side. A slim sandbank stretches out either side of the pier and into the distance. Boats dot the calm surface of the water here and there and continue beyond where Isabel can see.

It should have been a tranquil image, but police cars line the side of the building, and the place is a hub of activity. Isabel can make out two crime scene investigators she recognises but isn’t familiar with. She spots two more officers, in uniform, standing near two people in jogging gear. The woman has her arms around herself and is pacing back and forth in the small space while the man talks to the officers.

Voronov is standing with one of the suited-up investigators. At their feet, Isabel sees the body of a naked black woman, laid out on the black sheet.

As Isabel approaches, Voronov glances up from the discussion and, with a last word to the man, makes his way over to her.

Her partnership with Voronov is still pretty new but Isabel feels as if they’ve been working together for years. Voronov had previously been an inspector with Vice and had switched over to homicide last year after testifying against his partner, Seles, who had been Gifted, like Isabel; word had spread through the force that Voronov had turned on him because Voronov himself was anti-Gifted. Not too hard to believe considering that historically, Regulars, people with no Gifts, weren’t too keen on Gifted individuals.

The divide started at a young age, from the moment children went into the National Testing Institute as equals. There, they would undergo the testing process to determine if they were Gifted and, if so, their affinity. Their Gifts always fell under either the telekinesis or telepathy category. By the time they walk out of the NTI, that equality is gone.

In Voronov’s case, the truth was that Seles had just been a dirty cop.

It had taken Isabel a while to figure out that she could trust him and that he wasn’t there to throw her under the bus. For someone who was used to working her cases predominantly alone, Isabel couldn’t say it had been all bad being partnered up with someone. Even if this is the Polícia Judiciária’s way of toeing the line and ensuring every Gifted officer has an eye kept on them at all times.

Isabel stops just off the pier. Something in her stills as awareness spreads through her, her skin rippling out in goosebumps.

It feels as if someone is standing behind her, breathing with her. The sound of their breathing echoes in her head and she feels everything in her lock up.

Slowly, she turns, knowing that, like every other time, she won’t find anything, but unable to help herself.

All she sees is the path she took from her car to here. Not for the first time, she wonders if this sudden feeling is a side effect of having stopped her medication.

As someone classified as Gifted – and more importantly, as a telepathic Gifted who constantly has to guard against others’ thoughts and emotions – Isabel had spent a large chunk of her adult life attempting to protect herself against her own Gift through self-medicating. Illegally. It had worked for a long time, despite the debilitating headaches she’d had to live with as a result of consistent use of the S3 pill, which was designed to tamp down a Gifted’s power before the pill was recalled by the government.

The pills eventually ceased working for her, and just standing here without their protection has her on edge.

It’s her new way of existing. Always on edge.

The scrape of Voronov’s trainers on the rough ground draws her attention back to her surroundings. He stops at her side, slides his hands into his pockets and turns to face the proceedings.

She’s glad she’s left her jacket in the car. Despite it being only early spring, the air is warm, and she knows from experience that the day is going to get warmer as it shifts toward noon. Isabel is fine in her loose-fitting white T-shirt and an old pair of stretchy blue jeans. She’s got her running trainers on too, which, if she’s going to be trekking all over sand, means she won’t be ruining yet another pair of work shoes.

She takes a deep breath, pushing the foreign feeling to the back of her mind and breathing in the smell of open water. There are a lot of thoughts here, busy, clinical, cataloguing the scene. Those are easier for her to rise above, monotone in colour and feeling – just the crime scene specialists doing their job.

There are two others that Isabel can pinpoint; they reverberate with shock and the blue of hysteria. Isabel carefully pushes her walls up against them before they can weaken her defences.

They’ll come back, she knows. Insistent, and louder, as soon as she steps closer to the source.

‘A couple were jogging past and spotted her,’ Voronov says by way of greeting.

Isabel scoops her curls from around her face and takes the hairband from her wrist to tie her hair back in a loose knot at her nape. From where she’s standing, she can make out a line that cuts deeply from one side of the woman’s throat to the other, revealing flesh the same ruby red as pomegranates. She swallows convulsively.

‘Dumped here?’ She looks up at Voronov.

Either Voronov hadn’t had time this morning or he’d been feeling a little lazy, because he’s left his stubble alone. He’s a tall guy, tall enough that people always do a double-take when he walks by. Isabel isn’t used to seeing his face anything else other than perfectly clean-shaven, so the dark stubble is different. It makes the blue of his eyes stand out more. Like her, he’s dressed casually, in a navy-blue T-shirt and dark blue jeans.

But there is something that feels – not off, exactly, but an unsettled feeling peeling away from him. It’s unusual. For a Regular, Voronov’s natural shields are impressive. He’s one of the people Isabel doesn’t have to shield too strongly against. Some people just have an instinct for protecting their thoughts – maybe it’s something to do with personality and being naturally protective of oneself. Voronov is one of them.

‘No actually, they found her half in and out of the water.’

Isabel is startled for a moment, before she realises. ‘She washed up here?’

Voronov nods. ‘Probably would’ve kept being dragged by the current except her arm caught on the rope tethering the boat.’ He tilts his chin in the direction of it. ‘Lucky.’

‘Yeah,’ Isabel says, eyes drifting back to the body, ‘for us. Is that them?’ she asks, looking at the man and woman in jogging gear.

‘Yes, we took their details and statements but I asked them to stay on in case you thought you could get anything more out of them.’

They’ve been partners for a little over two months. It still surprises her when he refers to her Gift with this kind of ease. It’s refreshing after a lifetime of people, even those she worked well with, tiptoeing around it.

‘Did they see anything else?’ Isabel asks and starts towards the body, Voronov alongside her.

‘No. Just passing by.’

‘How come we don’t have Jacinta today?’ Jacinta is their head crime scene specialist and looking around, Isabel doesn’t see her among the small number of police on scene.

‘She was on call all night and still processing another case. She sent some of her people ahead.’

Isabel glances at him, frowning when the sunlight hits her right in the eyes. She wonders briefly where she’s left her sunglasses. ‘So, she’ll still be with us on this case?’

‘I don’t think the Chief will be inflicting you on anyone new any time soon.’

Isabel cuts him a look but doesn’t do anything but shake her head lightly.

As they make their way over, the forensics specialist glances up from where he’s kneeling beside the body.

‘Bom dia,’ Isabel says.

‘Inspector.’ He stands to attention a little too fast, snapping his shoulders back like he’s about to salute her, and Isabel blinks a little at him. She doesn’t recognise him. ‘I’m Angelo Pinho, I’m the head crime scene officer on site today. We’ve almost finished here; the body is ready to be moved. Our team is still combing the sandbank, but I don’t think we’ll find much.’

‘Inspector Voronov told me the body wasn’t dumped in this location, that she washed up here,’ Isabel murmurs and kneels. It will be hard to pin down where she was dumped. It could have been anywhere along the Tagus. They really are lucky she didn’t flush out into the Atlantic.

The woman hasn’t been in the water long enough for it to completely degrade the state of her body. She’s maybe about Isabel’s age, early thirties or thereabouts, and clearly very physically fit. Her physique makes Isabel think of a ballet dancer, all strength and grace. Her hair spills beneath her in a multitude of neat braids. Up close, the cut across her neck is even deeper than Isabel had thought, and she has to glance away from the split muscle and skin for a moment. As she takes in the rest of her, she notes that not only is the woman not wearing any clothing; there’s also no jewellery. No earrings, no rings or bracelets, no necklace or watch.

The woman’s eyebrows are perfectly shaped and her mouth, dry and cracked from the water, is wide and full. The kind that would have made a lot of people look twice.

There’s nothing on her to indicate anything of who she is apart from her skin. Isabel notes the smaller lines and scrapes marring her body.

Young, beautiful and at the peak of health.

Isabel should be used to seeing dead bodies. But there’s something that always gets to her about seeing someone like this. Their life thread severed; their body treated as if it were nothing more than garbage. No respect or honour for the life that had been.

Despite having spent the last few months itching to get back out there and on cases, Isabel has not missed this part of her duties.

‘We had to be careful when moving her,’ Angelo says, looking at the woman with a touch of pity, ‘the cut was vicious, all the way down to the cervical spine.’

Isabel winces and can’t help running a hand over her own throat. She rubs away the phantom sensation his words conjure. ‘What kind of damage has she taken from the water? The small cuts and the scrapes?’

‘Rigor mortis hasn’t completely set in but with the body having been submerged in the water it’s likely that onset has been significantly slowed. It’ll be hard to determine how long she’s been in there. The smaller wounds could be from being dragged along by the current. But it’s too soon to say and it’s something we might not be able to determine.’

‘I’m going to take a wild guess and say we have no weapon either.’

‘Apart from her,’ Angelo says, ‘we don’t have anything. We’ve been combing the sand just in case but so far we haven’t found anything.’

Makes sense, Isabel thinks. The odds were slim that evidence would have washed up alongside her.

Isabel sighs and rubs at her head. Close up, Angelo’s thoughts are playing in the back of her head, an ongoing murmur listing things off as he frowns back down at his clipboard of notes. Isabel puts some physical distance between them.

‘Let us know as soon as you’re done here,’ she says, ‘we’ll need the results of the post-mortem as soon as possible and if anything else does turn up, call us right away.’

Angelo nods his head a little too fast, a little too eager. She wonders how long he’s been with Jacinta’s team. He must be good. Jacinta would have kicked up a fuss and made sure he was out of there if he wasn’t.

‘Did the witnesses see anything else?’ she asks Voronov.

He shakes his head. ‘No, nothing else.’

‘Okay, I guess there isn’t much else they can give us right now.’ Isabel pulls out her phone, turns away and starts walking off. ‘We can let the witnesses go, we won’t be needing anything else for now,’ she calls out to the officers standing with the couple. She pulls up a search engine page and a map of the city.

Voronov stays behind for a moment, speaking to forensics, before rejoining her.

‘For her to get caught here . . .’ she looks out at the water and the sandbanks, ‘there aren’t a lot of places she could have been thrown in.’

‘Estoril, maybe,’ Voronov says.

‘Maybe.’ She eyes the map and bites into her lower lip. ‘Or maybe Carcavelos.’ No way to be sure really. She pushes her hair back from her face. ‘We’ll have to wait for the post-mortem results.’ A glance at her watch shows her it’s nearly ten. ‘Get back, pick up some breakfast on the way?’ She glances back at the team and watches as they shift the victim into a body bag and start to zip it up. ‘Once we have her prints . . .’ Well, it won’t do them any good if she’s not on the system. ‘We’ll trawl through missing persons.’ Just thinking about it has her rubbing her eyes in sympathy for her future self’s eyes.

Voronov gives her that half-smile. ‘At least we’re off minor offences.’

Isabel sighs. ‘Yeah, at least there’s that.’

Chapter 10

Daniel and Carla have pulled a table closer to the whiteboard at the other end of the room. They’re dragging over chairs when Isabel and Voronov go in.

‘Jacinta will be in for a briefing later,’ Isabel says, closing the door behind her and heading over to join them, ‘she’s with forensics at the victim’s house now.’ Isabel drags over a chair so they’re all sitting around the same table.

‘Nothing in the house?’ Daniel says.

‘No, not that we could see. Jacinta’s people might find out something we haven’t though. Shoe print on the balcony,’ Isabel says, and Voronov pulls out his phone to show them all the picture he snapped before they left Marta’s apartment. ‘Door to the balcony locks from the inside but it was unlocked when we got there. Only other person that we know for sure has a key is the landlord. We’ll check his whereabouts just in case.’

‘Not the sister?’ Daniel asks.

Isabel shakes her head. ‘No. No point. She spends most of the year away, so Marta never gave her one. Even if it had been the sister or the landlord, would they not have locked the door and cleaned up the mess? And told us about it?’ Isabel points at how the pots are clustered together and knocked over. ‘Why would someone have shoved them all like that? The other plants are all neatly lined up on the balcony.’

‘There were multiple locks on the door that the landlord claims he knew nothing about,’ Voronov says. ‘We have a victim who was either extremely paranoid or expecting some unwanted company.’

Isabel nods. ‘Unpacked shopping on the table . . . she would’ve put that away if she’d just headed out of her own volition. That shoe print and flowerpots – maybe that was her making a run for it.’

Carla chews on her bottom lip. ‘Maybe she was surprised at home . . .’

‘We asked the landlord about CCTV and there’s only one camera, which is in the foyer, nothing else in the rest of the building. We’re expecting the tapes by the end of the day,’ Isabel says. ‘That’s a lot of hours of viewing.’

Voronov leans forward on the table, resting his arms on the table. ‘Her old boss says she resigned in December, which means it’s been a little over a month. We’ll have to retrace whatever steps we can. And there’s also the girl.’

Carla glances up from the notes that she’s taking down. ‘A girl?’

‘A teenager. Her name is Alma Pontes. She used to frequent the youth club but went missing a week after Marta left.’

‘Okay, so,’ Daniel gives Isabel an expectant look, ‘tell us what you want us covering and we’ll get started. You guys have been going since last night, right? You should take a few hours.’

‘Yeah.’ Isabel does need to recharge. Maybe a few months ago she could have powered through, but now – well. She can’t afford a slip-up, so she’s going to have to suck it up, leave this in someone else’s hands for now and get as much rest as she can squeeze in. She looks at Voronov. ‘You too, right?’

He nods.

‘Right.’ She turns to Daniel. ‘Get some people over to Marta’s building, door-to-door. I want them to talk to the whole building. Anything is good. If the CCTV isn’t here by the end of the day, get on their ass, but after that I’ll need you with Carla.’ She looks at Carla, who is waiting expectantly. ‘The youth centre doesn’t want their staff or the kids being spoken to by someone who isn’t Gifted. So I need you down there. Start speaking to them, but not just about Marta – see what they have to say about the young girl, Alma. Please stop in and speak to Alma’s dad as well. The youth centre has already sent us what we requested.’ Thank God.

Voronov stirs. ‘Phone records too. We don’t have her phone, but we have her number and her sister provided us with possible phone companies.’

‘I’ll work on getting her bank records as well. All right.’ Carla shuts her laptop and stands. ‘Buzz us when you’re back in?’

‘Yeah. And if you get anything, let us know.’

Chapter 11

When Isabel gets home, she hears her brother’s voice from inside. As soon as the door swings open, sharp nails scratch her shins through her trousers and she curses. Branco and Tigre. They scrabble up her legs and bark with excitement.

It gets a tired laugh out of her. ‘Shh, shh, you’ll piss off the neighbours!’ She steps inside and drops down to the floor to let them clamber onto her lap, licking at her face again and again. Isabel can’t stop laughing and it feels good. Something in her eases a little and she feels her body become heavier, tiredness settling in but a sort of peacefulness as well.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she busses kisses over their heads when they let her, stroking them as much as the frenzy allows, ‘missed you guys too. It was only one night!’

Sebastião is standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, arms folded, as he watches, his expression a mixture of amusement and worry. It makes his dimples wink into existence, the ones that both he and their younger sister, Rita, share with their dad. Isabel didn’t get those. She has her dad’s eyes instead, big, and soft brown. But overall, Sebastião is the one who takes after their dad’s side of the family the most, with his darker brown skin and short, tight curls.

When they were younger, for a time Sebastião’s hair had been long enough for twists and Isabel remembers sitting with Tia Simone, fingers glossed with sweet-smelling cream, both of them working small sections of his hair into twists. He almost always dozed off.

‘You look like crap, maninha.’

She waves his concern away and then groans as she forces herself back to her feet. ‘Thank you for taking them yesterday.’

He shrugs. ‘You know I don’t mind. And the parishioners love them.’

‘They better not be feeding my dogs all the time,’ she says. She knows the three elderly ladies who always arrive early to help Sebastião before evening mass have a fondness for biscuits. They have a fondness for bribing Isabel’s dogs with biscuits too. ‘How are you?’ She drops a kiss on his cheek as she heads for the kitchen, following her nose.

Something smells good.

‘Look at you being the best brother,’ she says.

‘Yeah, yeah, it’s just tortilha,’ he says.

Even better.

She uncovers the plate on the counter. She can smell the fried onions. Washing her hands quickly, she cuts herself a slice and by the time she’s sitting at the small table, Branco and Tigre are at her feet, big eyes eager. But they don’t get her as often as they used to with the puppy eyes. If they did, they’d be waddling rather than walking. They’re like hoovers.

Sebastião sits down on the other chair with his own plate.

‘What were you planning on eating if I wasn’t here? Your fridge is empty, Isa,’ he says, voice softly chiding. He’s watching her as she decimates the chunk of tortilha on her plate.

‘I was meant to have done some shopping today,’ she says after she’s slowed down, ‘but when I got home yesterday, and they weren’t here . . .’ Her eyes drift down to the dogs now lying at her feet. As soon as they notice she’s looking at them, their tails start swinging gently. ‘The house was too quiet and there was still some work to do so . . . I went back. Ended up working all night.’

‘So come home earlier.’

Isabel smiles. ‘I couldn’t. We had an unexpected breakthrough.’ She sighs and pats his hand. ‘I know you’ve been worried. I’m sorry. I’ve honestly been pretty good lately. You just caught me on a bad day.’

‘All right. So, do you get to actually get some sleep tonight or do you have to rush back?’

‘No,’ she gets up, gets another slice of tortilha, and sits back down, ‘no, my plan for tonight is a shower and then bed.’ She’ll probably give the run a miss too. Looks like the all-nighter has done the job. Even the neighbours seem quieter.

Unbidden, the coroner’s words come to mind, and she remembers the state of Marta’s brain. Suddenly, the pink of the ham peeking through the layers of potato and egg isn’t as appetising as it was. Isabel swallows back the sick feeling and finishes off the rest of it, going slower this time.

‘Rita and Tia Maria stopped by for the morning service today,’ he says.

Isabel wipes her mouth and lets herself melt into her chair. Not even the mention of her mother and sister can ruin the feeling of a satisfied stomach and she slips a little further down in her seat. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Rita says you two have been talking a bit more . . .’ He leaves it open, arching an eyebrow. Isabel is sure she got that habit from him. He was always doing it when he was in his teens and Isabel had been impressionable then.

‘She said that in front of Mum?’ Isabel says, disbelief lacing her words.

‘You think so?’

Isabel lets out a bitter laugh. ‘No.’

‘It was while Tia Maria was speaking to someone else. Rita sounded . . . happy, though. That you guys are talking again.’

Isabel sighs. ‘Well . . . yeah. She’s been making more of an effort ever since . . . well. Always when Mum isn’t around of course. I wonder if she even realises she’s doing it.’ Keeping her attempts at mending her relationship a secret from their mother.

Isabel wonders if Rita realised that doing this, hiding Isabel away like this, is also something that she needs to change. Isabel doesn’t think that’s real. . .