Nothing to Lose

Book 0: The Gillian Marsh series

by Anna Legat

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

The second installment in the gripping DI Gillian Marsh series After a head-on collision resulting in four deaths and a fifth person fighting for his life, DI Gillian Marsh is sent to investigate. Nothing seems to add up. How did four capable drivers end up dead on a quiet, peaceful country road? As Gillian unpicks the victims? stories, she edges closer to the truth. But will she be able to face her own truth and help her daughter before it?s too late?

Release date: April 7, 2017

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 200

Sample

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She shut the door in his face.

Bitch.

While Imogen, his sweet blonde angel, was watching wide-eyed from the staircase, her little feet dangling, her cuddly old blanket muffling a cry for Daddy.

What a bitch!

He didn’t want to bang on the door and call the bitch by her name because that would have made Imogen cry, and he couldn’t bear his baby girl crying. And that nosy cow across the street was standing at the kerb, hands on hips, fag hanging from her mouth, gearing up to call the cops. So he didn’t kick the door in and didn’t take what belonged to him: his little girl.

For a day out.

A day in the park, McDonald’s, dropping in on Mum and Dad in the afternoon; Mum had made a chocolate fudge cake, Imogen’s favourite... It wasn’t much that he asked for. But Sammy was a bitch through and through, and she wouldn’t let him have his daughter. She shut the door in his face.

A small, metallic-blue car pulls up at a crossroads on top of the hill. Luke steps on the accelerator and his tanker lorry, carrying nine thousand gallons of fuel, lurches forward and up – a slowly charging rhino. The car on top of the hill tilts forward, indecisive, staggers, stalls and retreats, in panic, out of harm’s way. Some people should never be let behind the wheel. Can’t make up their minds whether to live or die. They shouldn’t get out of bed in the first place. Luke’s tanker rolls over the hill, in front of the trembling blue hatchback that gives way, meek and in-ferior. Luke blows the horn – puts the old git in his place.

It is a small victory. He has a terrible,headache, and the petrol fumes don’t help; neither does the morning sun that shines from beyond the hill, bright and dazzling. Is he still seeing double? Luke’s sunglasses are somewhere on the passenger seat, buried in plastic bags and food wrappers. He’ll have to stop in the next lay-by and find them. He slows down – no rush now that he has established the ground rules of the road. The irritating blue car lingers in his wing mirror, keeping a respectful distance despite erratic accelerations and braking.

He had tried. This job, for one – he had stuck with it. It paid for a princess’ carriage bed for Imogen – not that Imogen will ever sleep in it if the bitch has her way. It looks ridiculous in his rented one-bedroom maisonette, in that one narrow bedroom, a lone piece of furniture where he sleeps for now, a grown man. It’s a farce! But he grinds his teeth and bears it. Yesterday he went to pick his little girl up at the usual time, and the bitch shut the door in his face. All he had left to do was to drink himself to sleep, but the sleep didn’t come, only this damned headache. Somewhere on the passenger seat is a water bottle. Where's a lay-by when you need one?

He had tried, but he is beyond trying.

From the opposite side of the road two cars press towards him, side by side, bumper to bumper. A Mexican stand-off. Luke observes them with little interest. What does he care? Someone will have to give way. One of the two, because it won’t be him. He won’t be a pushover. Not any more. If neither of those two backs off, then he won’t, either. Be it on her head, bitch! She will have to explain it to Imogen: how she had made Daddy so bloody angry...

Yet he slows down a fraction. He is an accommodating man, though Sammy says otherwise.

He had always been an accommodating man, sensible. Hadn't he bent backwards for Tanya –let her be, given her space – and what had he got for his trouble? The girls didn’t know him. Didn’t want to know him. Tanya had moved them as far away from him as she could. Glasgow! How he had tried to hang on to them: long-distance lorry driving between Scotland and Land’s End, knocking on the door, hanging around the school gates, begging for a second chance! No good. They used to be his two little angels, like Imogen is now. It took two minutes to turn them against him – one stupid mistake, one late night out with the boys –

The girls don’t want to know him. Fair enough. But this won’t be happening again. He won’t lose Imogen like he’s lost them. He is older now – wiser. He knows the cost of letting go. This time he won’t be short-changed. The bitch can try all she likes. She can slam the door in his face. He won’t give in to her. He’s learned his lesson. His foot pushes the gas pedal onto the floor.

At the bottom of the hill, on a straight and narrow stretch of the nauseatingly steep road, the sun stabs at his eyes with a vengeance.

*

It takes Vic fifteen minutes to shuffle from the front door to the car, which Margaret would have ordinarily written into the timetable, except that today she has had no advance notice. Alison called at seven thirty, hyped-up and desperate: Matthew had just thrown up and had to be kept home from school. She had to be at work, absolutely had to! And Jonathan had already left. She’d take Alex to school – Alex was fine. Matty must have eaten something that disagreed with him, but the school was strict about it: forty-eight hours home quarantine after being sick. How was she to put her life on hold for forty-eight hours!

Margaret said she would be there in the next hour. Of course she would have to bring Vic with her. He is bound to get anxious if left home on his own for any period of time. He would go looking for her and get lost somewhere between the church and the post office. Last time he did that she had found him perched on a bench in the cemetery, staring at her, baffled. She'd told him – jokingly – that he would drive her to an early grave with all his escape-artist antics and what-not; how convenient they were already in a cemetery... That had made him weep. He wept and wept, couldn’t stop. Margaret knows not to joke with Vic nowadays, he has lost his sense of humour along with his sense of direction. And she is not in a frivolous mood herself. Not anymore. She is too tired and too worried to laugh. It doesn’t bear thinking what will become of Vic if – when... The pain has come back. It can be sharp, just below her left shoulder blade. It’s only a matter of when. And then what? Alison can’t look after Vic. She’ll dump him in a care home, and that will confuse him no end. He’ll weep himself to death.

‘I’ll have to bring Dad with me. You know how he doesn’t like being on his own,’ she told Alison.

Forty-five minutes later Vic is still shuffling to the car. Margaret ushers him in and buckles him up – the tremor in his hands, brought on by the excitement of the moment, prevents him from being able to do it himself. He looks anxious when she starts the car.

‘Do you have your driver’s licence with you?’ he asks. ‘In case we get stopped...’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Oh, good!’ he says, though he still sounds unsure and rather suspicious.

As they approach the junction joining Poulston with the dual carriageway to Sexton’s Canning, Margaret has to crane her neck over Vic, who is straining his to check the oncoming traffic. A lorry travels far in the distance, far enough for Margaret to enter the   main road. The moment she edges forward, Vic grabs hold of the dashboard.

‘Stop, Margaret! Stop, for God’s sake! Can’t you see the lorry!’ he cries, terror etched onto his face.

As if its purpose is to unsettle Vic even more, the lorry gathers speed. Margaret pulls her foot off the accelerator and slams on the brakes. The car stalls. Vic is shaking violently, hitting the dashboard with both hands.

‘Reverse, God damn you! Reverse, woman!’

Now her hands are shaking too. Unsteadily, she turns the key in the ignition – the car jumps in and out of action, and dies again. It was in gear. Vic’s lips turn white.

‘Reverse,’ he whispers, staring at her with an intense focus she has not seen in months.

At last the car has started and she manoeuvres it back behind the give-way lines. The lorry – a huge petrol tanker emblazoned with BP’s spring green hues belying its ecologically hostile cargo – zooms by, its horn roaring. ‘It’s okay, Vic,’ she says without looking at him. What’s the worst that could have happened? she reasons with herself to calm her nerves. They could have been mowed down by the lorry, arm in arm, dying together, and Alison would have to stay at home to nurse Matthew back to health. Worse things have happened...

But this is only a passing thought. Margaret is not yet ready to entertain all the possibilities. And she has to hurry, for she is late. Alison must be beside herself.

The mobile phone in Margaret’s bag rings, a proper old-fashioned ring, like from when telephones were what they were meant to be: a means of communication, not harassment.

‘Vic, can you get my phone, please? It’s in my bag.’

‘No,’ he replies. ‘They can wait. Eyes on the road!’

‘It’s Alison. She wants to know where we are.’

The mobile stops ringing.

‘See!’ Vic triumphs, and with that the phone goes off again. Margaret fumbles around her seat, searching for the bag. Vic’s foot is on top of it, and he is not budging. The BP lorry in front has slowed down, just to annoy her. She will have to overtake it before the violently ringing mobile (with Vic’s foot on top of it) drives her barmy.

Just then the lorry accelerates. He is doing it on purpose: a big man, a big bully. He is toying with her. Margaret is tired of being toyed with. She is tired of men constantly trying to put her in her place. All her life she has lived in the passenger seat, but now she is doing the driving. She will overtake the lorry, and the big bad bully can do nothing about it.

*

It wasn’t easy for Giacomo to abandon the warmth of his marital bed this morning. Megan smelled so good! Her plump arm with skin whiter than the sheets was obscuring her ample bosom. The wealth of her breasts was spilling from under that naughty arm, and a small pink nipple peered at Giacomo ruefully as he kissed her shoulder. Her hair tickled his chin and got caught in his thick two-day stubble.

‘It’s scratchy!’ Megan wailed, and fell asleep again. She didn’t have to get up in the morning, or at any time of day or night. She was his lady of leisure, his trophy wife. That had always been the deal: he would go out to work, she would stay in and take care of herself. For him. For Giacomo. He was her frisky Italian stallion, and she was his wide-hipped English mare, though deep down he preferred to think of her as his amply uddered cow (because her considerable bosom was  what had attracted him to her in the first place).

‘I have to go, bellissima,’ he breathed into her ear, ‘but I may have a minute to spare...’ His manhood was surprisingly and delightfully erect, which at sixty was an occurrence both rare and most welcome. He pressed it against Megan’s soft buttock, proud at his vitality.

‘You’d better go then,’ she muttered sleepily, unimpressed.

Had she not noticed his raging cock? He prodded her with more vigour and repositioned his impressive organ so that it was ready to nosedive between her thighs into the depths of her warm interior. In reply Megan shifted the bulk of her white body.

‘Oh, Jammie,’ she said, ‘not now.’

The moment was gone, the cock flaccid and shrunken, alongside Giacomo’s ego. Things hadn’t been too good for a while. Since her brother’s fortieth. Giacomo wasn’t stupid – he could see through her. She was ashamed of him. It was his age, his grey hair, teeth missing in the back of his mouth. He was past it.

The tools in the back of the van rattle angrily as Giacomo swerves to the left. An imbecile is overtaking him – has been doing so for a while now. Giacomo has taken his foot off the accelerator to give way, but the imbecile has slowed down too and is sailing next to him, nose to nose. Giacomo glances to the right, involuntarily turning the wheel in the same direction. ‘Go on!’ he waves his arms, furious. ‘Cretino! Imbecille!’ Before the two vehicles collide with each other, Giacomo straightens his wheel and focuses on the road ahead. He puts his foot down. He doesn’t give a toss if that idiot next to him wants to kill himself. ‘Try me!’ he yells at him.

On top of the hill a lorry appears and begins to grow in size as it rolls down. Giacomo struggles to stay on the straight and narrow. His left-side tyres have already caught once in the deep ruts at the side of the road. He is too old for this – he would never admit it, but his eyes aren’t what they used to be. Neither are his reflexes. Nor is his dick. Even now, as he is being raced by some idiot, he could swear another car popped into his line of vision from behind the lorry. It’s like a speed game of chess. Checkmate.

*

Ben, darling Ben, always tells her to slow down and smell the roses. And Emma does her best, but there is very little time and a lot to do in the time given. Her first appointment today is at nine, and so it goes – the whole day is filled with appointments to its full capacity. Decisions have to be made, decisions that can affect people’s lives and can also impact on the branch’s overall performance. This in turn could influence staff bonuses, even their job security. These days it didn’t take much to close down a branch, especially if it was losing money. Or not making enough. How could one slow down and smell the roses? It was easy for Ben to say. His work at the arboretum is all about smelling the roses, though – let’s face it – it pays close to nothing, leaving Emma to navigate the fast lane. Except that today even the fast lane is considerably slow. She wishes people didn’t travel in the morning rush hour if they had no intention of doing so efficiently.

She has to arm herself with patience – not her strongest quality. The little white van is rattling along hopelessly slowly – it shouldn’t be too hard to overtake. What is the driver doing? His arms are flaying, his fist punching the air. There is way too much road rage these days. He is beginning to accelerate.

Perhaps this is as good a time as any to smell those roses? It is a nice enough day, sunny. She is driving with the roof down. Plenty of fresh air before she enters the stuffy bank to inhale the bouquet of clashing perfume and eau de cologne scents. A glance over the monotonous rolling stretches of the surrounding Wensbury Plains remind her how cumbersome her daily commute is. Yellowing stretches of fields with post-harvest stubble are broken only by stacks of straw bales sealed in black bags. Ben thrives on monotony. Landscapes. Hills and valleys. Emma tries to embrace his perspective on life, time and patience permitting. She loves him and will do all he asks. Within reason. And the thing with Ben is that he doesn’t ask much, but dreams without restrains. Ben is a dreamer. The whole concept of babies, for example – it’s great, but who will stay at home to wipe the dimply pink bottoms? Perhaps it won’t come to that, but they ought to plan for all possible outcomes. What if? When, how and who? She will have to make time to discuss the implications with her darling husband; he will have to make concessions.

This is beyond a joke! The guy in front is just being silly. Is he on the phone? That’s outrageous! What is he playing at? It’s now bumper to bumper. He’s doing it on purpose. She has no option but to hoot. She doesn’t like it, it’s so rude, but she will. This is not funny!

The white van wobbles. Has he lost control of his car? The sooner she overtakes him the better. If only she could...

*

There is a distinct push from behind. His car appears to be lifted and tossed forward. Trevor has just enough time to think it is the white van driver – clearly a lunatic! Enough time for speculation to cross his mind as to who will be presumed to be at fault in this situation. Enough time to almost enjoy the prospect of a good fight in court. But then his mirrors, all of them at once, come ablaze. Or perhaps it is the roar of explosion that comes first. Trevor will not be able to tell what came first.

The impact of the explosion is responsible for hurling Trevor’s car, not the white van driver. The van is rolling on its side across the field. It turns several times until it rests on its roof. The oil tanker is engulfed in flames. Black smoke fights with the blue sky – the sky is losing the battle. A small blue car is buried under the burning back tyres of the tanker. A little man is trying to climb through the small car’s shattered windscreen. He isn’t quite able to pull himself up.

Trevor abandons his car and runs towards the accident scene. Has the red Audi made it through the carnage? Is it safe to help the little man? He wants to see – must take a closer look. The heat intensifies as Trevor gets nearer the inferno. He covers his face – it feels like it’s beginning to blister; the heat penetrates the skin and pierces his skull. Burning pain stings his eyes.. It’s unbelievably hot. The air is vibrating. Airwaves of black smoke. The little man collapses back into his car. Has his back been smoking or is it just the ever-present heat? Is it safe to come any closer? And what’s happening with the red Audi? He can’t see it anywhere.

Another explosion. The little car is blown to high heaven and the force of the explosion volleys Trevor up in the air and, in the same breath, hurls him down to the ground.

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The place is crawling with uniformed men: police, firemen, traffic, forensics, paramedics. A rippling congregation of onlookers is kept at bay by black and yellow tape and the Highways Agency officers. It is difficult to keep the single entry point clear – media vans keep arriving, cameras are set up and a helicopter is hovering overhead. The only two survivors have been airlifted to the Western National Hospital. The number of casualties is unknown. The fire has been suppressed, but Forensics haven’t been given the all clear to inspect the wreck of the petrol tanker. Its remains are scattered across the road and debris is being collected from far afield. Little is left of the driver in the cabin which – like a flaming missile ­ had been catapulted several yards forward, dragging with it what was once a red vehicle, now a part compressed,-part melted mass of scrap metal. The two bodies in the other car are charred and deformed; ; the skeletal, smoking frame of the small vehicle is wedged under the rear of the lorry.

It is a surreal sight – a collision involving at least four vehicles on a straight stretch of a quiet rural carriageway on a sunny Monday morning, near the sleepy town of Sexton’s Canning. The cordoned area is a scene of hellish carnage, yet only metres away the sun is shining on the rolling green fields. Even a tree stands nearby, tall and unscathed, leaves sprinkled with deep red. Berries? Though the first impression you get is of blood, you know it isn’t – ­ blood would have vaporised in the extremely high temperatures of burning petrol.

Detective Superintendent Scarfe is the Senior Investigating Officer, the best man for the job in Gillian’s opinion. He is more than able – not to mention willing – to coordinate the multitude of agencies that will have to be involved, to deal with the media and to chair briefings. An officer from the Collision Investigation Unit is also on site, gathering intelligence about the incident. The more the merrier, Gillian concedes the point, and she doesn’t really mind the number of chiefs running this operation as long as at the end of the day she is left to her own devices to get to the bottom of this mystery. Something started this chain reaction – what was it?

Establishing the identities of all involved and informing their families is the first priority, but the extent of destruction to the vehicles prevents simple number plate recognition apart from the owner of the white Vauxhall Combo van which ended up on its roof in the field: Giacomo Vitoli. Unfortunately, he is in hospital in a critical condition so won’t be shedding any light on the causes of the accident any time soon, if at all. The other potential witness is the man who abandoned his vehicle at the top of the road and proceeded on foot towards the scene. He was found unconscious on the road, only a hundred yards away from the blazing lorry. He was lucky that the fuel from the tank of the crushed passenger vehicle leaked down the hill before it exploded, in the direction opposite to where he came from. Lucky man ­ Trevor Larkin. Gillian may be able to speak to him later at the hospital – if they let her. Finally the man who reported the accident, Robert Cane – he arrived a minute or two after the fact, stopped at the top of the hill and, as he was calling 999, saw the distant figure of Trevor Larkin heading towards the scene, and witnessed the final explosion.

Like a rag doll, Robert Cane marvelled, . . .