The Lost Girl

Book 7: Brennan and Esposito

by Tania Carver

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Suspense

Synopsis

When three men are found hanged in locations around Colchester, Detective Inspector Phil Brennan gets the shock of his life. Not only are the victims dressed to look like him, but each carries a defaced tarot card in the pocket of their identical leather jackets, scrawled across with one name: Phil Brennan. The bodies aren't found in random locations - they're all in places where DI Brennan has caught a murderer. Someone is sending him a message. And he thinks he knows who it is... Shocking and thrilling, in this dramatic new Tania Carver thriller DI Phil Brennan and his wife, psychologist Marina Esposito, have their lives turned upside down as the past comes back to haunt their present with terrifying consequences.

Release date: November 21, 2017

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 416

Sample

The house was supposed to be a safe one. That was why they were there. 

She didn’t know where ‘there’ was, exactly. Just followed what Mummy and Daddy said. Went where they went. Did what they did. But yes, she thought, it was safe. Or at least it felt safe. 

Wrong. 

It happened without warning. It had been a normal day. Or what had become a normal day for the family. Mummy, Daddy, her brother and her, all together as usual. It was snowing outside and she and her brother had wanted to go out, play in the snow. Mummy and Daddy had looked at each other, concerned. But the men who watched them, watched over them and kept them safe, Mummy said, told them it would be OK. They’d keep an eye on them. So she got ready. 

Before that she had been playing with the new dolls she had been given. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with them, really. Their clothes, their hair and the little plastic things they came with were all different to what she was used to. She’d had dolls, of course she had. But they had been cloth and straw. They had smelled of natural things, of what they were made of. Like Belinda. Not like these. They smelled of things she didn’t know. Didn’t like. Plastic, her mum had said. And her mouth had twisted up the way it always did when she wasn’t happy about something. She put the doll down, didn’t want to play with it if it was going to upset Mummy. But Mummy saw what she was doing, smiled. 

It’s all right, she said. Play with your doll. It’s fine. And she looked down at her and kept smiling. But when she looked up and away the smile evaporated quickly. 

She didn’t know how long they had been there. She remembered her life before the house. She remembered something that she thought must have been happiness. Safety. Security. She remembered smiling a lot and not worrying about things. Then one night, Mummy and Daddy had told her to be quiet, very quiet. Like they were playing a game. She had been allowed to carry one toy but that was it. She had chosen her favourite rag doll, Belinda. And that was it, they were off. Mummy, Daddy, her brother and her. Off into the night. 

She was scared. Creeping along by a fence at what she thought must have been the bottom of the garden, still pretending it was a game for Mummy and Daddy’s sake. Still trying not to breathe. 

Eventually they came upon a hole in the fence. Daddy ran towards it, beckoning the others. She stopped, stared at it. Couldn’t move. Mummy had seen her, stopped. Looked at her. 

What? Come on. 

It’s a game, Mummy had said, her voice tight and hissing. A game. Come on. You’re with us. Everything’ll be fine. We’ll come back for… everything else. Come on. 

She still wasn’t convinced but this was her mummy talking so she followed them. 

They ran through some woods. Woods that until then she had only glimpsed the tops of from a distance. Now she was in amongst them, moving quickly. 

They heard a sound from behind. Turned. 

Come on, her daddy shouted and they all tried to run quicker. 

This isn’t a game, she thought. This is scary. I want it to end. I want to go back… 

And then she saw lights ahead of them. Two. Blinking. On, then off. On, then off. And, pulled along by Daddy, they ran towards them, even faster. 

It was a car. A big one with lots of seats in. Someone opened the back door and Daddy put her brother in then her. Finally he and Mummy joined them. They hardly had time to say hello to the driver and his friend before the door shut and they were off. 

And then they came here. To the safe house. 

 

Do this, said her brother. 

He lay down in the snow, put his arms and legs out, moved them backwards and forwards. Because he was her brother and because he was older and she had been taught to always follow your elders and betters, she did the same. 

What are we doing? she said after a few minutes. 

Making snow angels, he said. Look. 

He stood up, beckoning her to do likewise. He pointed at the ground where they had been. 

See? It’s like wings. He looked at her, smiled. He had hardly stopped smiling since they had arrived there. We’ve got wings! 

She could see what he meant. And because he laughed, she laughed too. And they did it again. 

The snow kept falling and lying all morning, so there was no shortage of it to play in. They played until she started to get tired and a bit hungry. 

Going in, she said. 

Her brother looked up from the huge snowball he had been rolling, intending it to be the body of the biggest snowman ever made. Aw, stay… 

Coming back, she said, and went round the corner of the house. 

That was when she saw it. The sight that would stay with her for the rest of her life. 

At first she thought their two guards were playing snow angels too. But as she approached she noticed that their wings were red. And they weren’t moving. 

She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t move. She looked round, wanting to call for her brother, but the words wouldn’t come. Eventually, she ran inside, heart pounding, needing Mummy and Daddy. 

She found them. They were on the floor too, like the police had been. Covered in blood. 

And then she was grabbed from behind. 

She struggled, tried to bite, kick, scream, everything. Stop whoever it was doing whatever they had done to Mummy and Daddy. But she couldn’t do anything. Whoever it was had her too tightly. 

Stop struggling, you little fucker, a voice growled in her ear. 

She smelled bad breath. Stale meat and cigarette smoke. She didn’t stop struggling. 

I said stop it, or you’ll get what they’ve had. 

The meaning of the words penetrated. She stopped struggling. 

Good, the voice said. We’re going to leave now. You’re going to lie on the floor and not move. Keep your eyes and your mouth shut. Count to a hundred. Can you do that? 

She didn’t know if she could. She nodded. 

Good. And when you’ve done that do it again. Or we’ll come back. And you don’t want that. 

He threw her down on the floor. She kept her eyes closed. She tried to count to a hundred. 

Eventually she opened her eyes. Stared. Her mummy was staring right back at her. She felt wet and picked her hand up. Mummy’s blood. 

She wondered what had happened to her brother, where he was. Didn’t dare move to get up and find out. 

So she lay there. For how long, she didn’t know. Staring at her mummy’s sightless eyes, letting her mummy’s blood soak into her clothes. 

Too scared, too numb, to even cry. 

Claire held Damien’s hand. Tight. Heart pounding, legs shaking. Other parts of her body quivering too. So excited. Barely able to believe what she was about to do.

Not her, they. They were going to do it. Finally.

She glanced at Damien. Caught his profile in the dying light. God, he was handsome. Maybe not everyone’s idea of handsome, not classically good-looking, perhaps, but he did something to her. Moved something in her that no one else could move. Certainly not Gareth. He hadn’t moved her for years.

She looked away from Damien, down at her feet once more. Moving slowly, the riverside sand still damp from the receding tide.

Behind her, the lane led to the main road where they had parked. Or as main a road as Wrabness could claim. North of Colchester, south of Ipswich, it barely counted as a village. Dotted houses, farms, a slice of beach sporting a few stilted huts and some overturned, rotting boats along the sandy, stony shore. That was it.

And a forest. A dark forest. The kind two people could get lost in. If they wanted to. And they wanted to. They knew what had happened out here. The murders. The madness. The babies. The stuff of nightmares, lurid true-crime books and prurient Channel Five documentaries. And there had been all three. They could have gone to a hotel like everyone else who had an affair, lain in a bed they would pay for but never sleep in, but where was the risk, the thrill, in that? They were transgressing. Where better to do it than in one of the most transgressive places around? The place had been the lair of a predatory sexual, cross-gendered serial killer. It just added an extra layer of excitement. A frisson of sex and death.

Claire used her free hand to pull her blouse back together. Along with her skirt it had been pulled about during their session in the car, their passion so great they could barely keep their hands off each other as they drove. Pulling in her blouse was just for appearances’ sake, though, she thought. Just in case they bumped into anyone. Not that they would. Not down here. Not at this time of day. And if they did, she thought, breath shaking and mind giddy with what they were about to do, perhaps they might want to watch?

She looked round once more. No one about. Instead of keeping her blouse fastened she pulled it apart even more. Damien watched what she was doing. At her exposed black, lace-trimmed bra, the one she had worn specially for him, part of a set that he loved. That he had bought her. She saw the look on his face. Felt his pace increase.

Something in her own body responded to his increased pace. Something dark, hungry and primal.

She couldn’t get into the woods quick enough.

 

‘And this was where the body was actually found.’ Malcolm pointed to the spot. ‘Right there, ladies and gentlemen…’

He tried to put as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could but he sensed he was wasting his time. Seven people had turned up. That was it. And two had complained at having to walk so far. Three were texting while he was talking like they were in school and he was a particularly uninspiring teacher. Despite what overly theatrical flourishes he could manage, the Colchester Murder Walk just wasn’t the sure-fire success he had imagined it would be.

‘Right there,’ he shouted, feeling another theatrical flourish coming on, giving the buggers what they’d paid for, ‘in front of the light on the lightship. The woman was naked. She had been attacked, mutilated. Almost split in two…’ Shouting the last two words as if he was a fairground barker in some Victorian penny dreadful. Giggles ensued. Not the response he had expected. He continued. ‘Sexually assaulted. Her body riven by the effects of knives, chains, whips…’ He bent forward, eyes wide. ‘And carved into her forehead, the word… WHORE…’

He kept staring. They just giggled.

Jesus, he thought. Pull it back, you’re sounding like you’re enjoying yourself too much. He sighed. Should have stayed at the library.

When the library service was cut Malcolm had been one of the first to go. That was when he had settled on the idea of the Colchester murder tour. He had been on a Jack the Ripper tour in London’s East End and found it impressive. The guide knowledgeable but approachable, the crimes themselves explained in context to the times and the victims given a proper voice. Not sensational at all. A slice of living history, he had thought. On the train home he had got to thinking. Colchester had seen a rise in violent crime in recent years. More than its fair share of serial killers, too. Why not…

And here he was, down on the quayside of the river Colne on a bleak, cold Tuesday night, dressed as flamboyantly as he could, trying to be a character, trying desperately to interest this tiny band of people. He felt like giving up and going to the pub.

‘Any questions?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ said one bloke. Big, shaven-headed, tattooed. The woman with him all fake tan and spike heels. Her legs looked sparrow-thin and every time she tottered Malcolm thought she was going to snap.

‘Yes?’ said Malcolm.

‘What had happened to her?’

‘I’m coming to that.’

‘Only my mate used to have a burger van up that way.’ The bloke pointed down the road. ‘Said he helped the police, he did. Told me a few things.’ The man smiled, relishing what he was about to say. ‘He said that —’

‘Well, that’s great,’ said Malcolm, cutting him off. ‘For your mate. I’ll tell you everything else that happened, don’t worry. If you’ll just follow me…’

He turned and walked along the dock towards an old, abandoned warehouse with a rusted crane beside it.

‘Here’s where the story really gets exciting,’ he said, wishing he felt it.

 

Josh was glad of the darkness. It hid his fear.

Coming down this path, walking towards the house they were heading to, had been his idea. Kind of. It was a dare, something he felt expected to say. If he wanted to hang around with the cool kids, that was.

He looked at the other two. Kyle was small with perfect hair and a face that could look angelic but more often appeared manic and deranged. Eyes constantly waiting to be lit by a dark mischief. Tom was Kyle’s best friend and acolyte. The archetypal follower, doing whatever Kyle said, walking behind him at school, coming to rest slightly behind his left shoulder, always sniggering as if he was constantly savouring a favourite punchline.

Josh wanted to get in with them. Why, he didn’t really know. He hung about with the geekier kids. The scientists and readers. But Kyle and Tom seemed to have taken an interest in him, decided he was to be promoted to their ranks. Josh’s friends had noticed too; they hadn’t been happy about his new liaisons, had begun to withdraw from him. He was sad, of course, but someone else had taken their place. Hannah Cresswell. She liked the bad boys. And once Josh became friendly with Kyle and Tom, she had started paying attention to Josh. And Josh had boxed away his conscience, decided that the trade-off was worth it.

‘So where is it?’ asked Kyle.

‘Just down here.’

They walked away from East Hill in Colchester, down a wooded path, the trees susurrating, whispering above them, all around them. A language Josh didn’t understand. So many trees, so close to the road. Yet they couldn’t see or hear the road. The noise made him feel uneasy.

Ahead was the river. Beyond that the allotments, an electricity substation and a path that led to their housing estate. Deeply shadowed and wildly overgrown, it was the preserve of muggers and rapists. Or so the local legends said.

But before all that was the house. The three houses, really, but there was only one that had their attention.

The house where the mad boy in the cage had been found. The cage made of bones.

It had been huge at the time, with a massive police investigation to go with it. People had died. Secrets had been exposed. But once that was over the house had been left alone, most of the cage still there. Due to be demolished but somehow never got round to, its dilapidated state had increased along with its legend.

‘There it is,’ said Josh, stopping and pointing.

The other two’s eyes followed his finger. Didn’t notice Josh shudder. The house was a ruin, the roof partly exposed and covered with black plastic sheeting, making it look like a huge, malevolent winged creature had perched on top of it. The walls were discoloured, crumbling brick. The back of the house had already been reclaimed by nature. In front of the house at the side of the path were huge metal mesh fence panels, sunk into concrete bases dotted with various signs threatening the unwary to keep out. There were still some streamers of old, dirty, faded police tape slapping against the mesh in the breeze. None of them moved.

Eventually, Kyle pushed Josh in the back.

‘Go on, then,’ he said, no dark mischief in his eyes now, only unacknowledged fear, ‘you first.’

Josh turned to him. ‘Thought we’d all go in together.’

‘Hey, your idea. You wanted to come here. Said you’d show us what was there.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tom from behind Kyle’s left shoulder. ‘You said.’

Josh looked between the pair of them. They were as scared as he was. What had seemed like a good idea earlier at school, a brave thing to say in the daylight, didn’t seem so good now.

‘What you scared of?’ asked Kyle, attempting to cast off his fear onto Josh.

Tom seemingly thought of backing him up but decided against it.

‘Nothing,’ said Josh, hoping he sounded as brave as he wanted to.

‘Go on, then.’

‘You said we’d all do it together…’

Kyle summoned up a laugh. It sounded like a harsh belch in the dark. ‘Don’t do it then. We’ll tell everyone tomorrow that you were too scared.’

Everyone, thought Josh. He knew who that meant. Hannah Cresswell.

‘I’m not scared,’ he said, voice too loud and suddenly angry. ‘I’m going in.’

He began to pull the fence away, try to make an opening wide enough to slip through. The other two just stared at him.

‘You not coming?’ said Josh.

‘We’ll wait till you’ve done it.’

Josh almost laughed. ‘And then run home?’

Anger lit up Kyle’s eyes. ‘Fuck off, I’m not going to do that.’

‘You scared, then?’

‘I’m not fuckin’ scared!’

Tom just looked between the pair of them, speechless.

Josh did laugh this time. The cool kids? They were nothing. Scared to even come with him. He and his mates had done this kind of thing before. Loads of times. They had explored all over the place. His mates. Real mates. He suddenly missed them.

He squeezed through, kept the fence pushed open. Let’s get this over with, he thought. Then I can go and see my real friends again. Leave these losers behind.

‘Come on then,’ he said, holding the fence, ‘haven’t got all night.’

Kyle and Tom reluctantly followed him.

 

‘Here,’ said Claire, pulling Damien towards her, ‘now.’

Her hands were all over him, pushing his jacket from his shoulders, pulling his shirt from the waistband of his trousers at the same time. Power surged through her, a primal hunger.

‘Careful…’ Damien tried to undo his shirt buttons, stop Claire from pulling them off. Fine thing that would be, he thought, if Joanne went through his dirty washing and came across a torn shirt. She could work the rest out for herself.

Claire gave up on Damien, letting him undress himself, and began to pull her own clothes off. First the blouse which she had been opening as they walked, then her skirt.

She stood in her underwear and stockings and Damien tried to look at her in the fading light, admire the body that he had lusted after for so long, but she was moving so quickly that he didn’t have a chance to savour the moment.

‘Slow down, there’s… there’s no rush…’

She wasn’t listening. She pushed him down onto the ground. The forest floor was damp with mulched leaves, uneven with broken branches and stones.

‘This is it,’ she gasped, ‘I can feel it. Here. Now…’ Pulling at him all the time, hands on his body, clawing his clothes off.

Should have brought the picnic blanket, he thought, then followed that thought with: Now I’ll have to have this suit dry-cleaned. He was beginning to wonder whether all this was just a lot of fuss for a little bit of pleasure, when Claire finally took off her bra and straddled his prone body. He looked up at her. Two kids, he thought, and her tits weren’t even sagging. Well, not much. He felt himself stiffening, her hands on his trousers.

What the hell, he thought. Come this far…

He lay back. Let her do what she wanted to do. Tried to forget the discomfort and just enjoy it.

 

‘Fiona Welch, ladies and gentlemen, that was her name.’

Malcolm was getting a sore throat from projecting his voice. Even the small number of people in front of him was difficult to reach. But then Malcolm had always had a problem making himself heard.

‘And if you look up here…’ he pointed to the crane above them, etched against the gathering night sky by the quayside lights, ‘this was where she fell to her death.’ His hoped-for dramatic crescendo on the final word was undermined by his voice cracking and croaking as he tried to project. ‘’Scuse me,’ he said, hoping that the audience would laugh with him not at him, ‘getting emotional.’ He cleared his throat, continued.

‘Fiona Welch. She was a psychologist, working with the police on a string of murders. But, ladies and gentlemen, as you may well be aware, that was all a smokescreen. Because it was Fiona Welch herself who was behind the murders.’

He waited for that to sink in, continued.

‘She kidnapped women, young, single women, and imprisoned them in here.’ He gestured to the warehouse. ‘Kept in coffin-like boxes, wired up to electrocute them if they tried to move. Assisted by a shambling, mute monster known only as the Creeper.’

So much for giving voice to the victims in a non-exploitative way, Malcolm thought.

‘Why did she do it? What did she hope to gain?’ He looked round the crowd. Expectant now, waiting for him to relate the grisly, salacious details. He had their attention. Hooked. It was a novel, empowering experience. He couldn’t disappoint them. ‘Well, we don’t know. These young women were tortured, mutilated and eventually murdered. All except the final victim. And she fought back. She was a heroine. But more on that later.’

He turned back to them, gestured to the warehouse.

‘Shall we go inside? That’s where the story continues.’

They eagerly followed him.

Malcolm smiled. He had them just where he wanted them. So what if he played up the exciting aspects? Give the people what they want. Oh yes.

There was no way his walking tour could fail now.

 

‘Go on then, open it.’ Tom stared at the door handle as if it would grab him back if he touched it. Josh, having spoken, just stood and watched. Waited.

Tom turned to him. ‘You do it.’ Even the darkness, sudden and deep, couldn’t hide the fear in his eyes. It glistened like a timid flame.

Josh looked at Kyle but the other boy was saying nothing. He looked back to the door. He wasn’t scared. Or at least not as scared as the other two. And that gave him strength. He almost smiled. ‘You know what happened in here?’

The other two said nothing. Breathed hard. The trees had all but cut off the noise of the road. Beyond he could hear the movement of the river, ponderous and slow, like the water had come to a coagulated, stagnant standstill.

‘Just open the door,’ said Tom. Kyle seemed to have lost his voice completely. ‘Open the door and let’s get it over with.’

‘Scared? Think the cage’ll still be there? The cage of bones.’ Josh continued, not giving them time to answer. ‘I don’t. People will have come in by now. Nicked bits of it, if the police didn’t take it all away. But if there’s some left, that’ll be great, won’t it? Get a trophy? One of the bones. Might even be a human one…’

Tom and Kyle were shivering now. Josh was enjoying himself.

‘Let’s go,’ he said and opened the door.

He stepped inside, flicking on the flashlight on his phone. He swung the beam around. The place was a tip. From the trash, empty bottles and cans and calcified remains of human waste, someone had been living there. He moved slightly further in. Something crunched under his feet. He looked down. A syringe. Suddenly he didn’t want to go any further. He felt for the first time that he was actually trespassing, going somewhere he shouldn’t be. Not because it was scary, not because of ghosts or anything, but because there might be someone there who could actually hurt him. Someone real.

He turned back, looked at the other two. They had tentatively followed him in. They were swinging their own phone flashlights around.

‘Is that…?’ Kyle pointed to a calcified mass.

‘Yeah,’ said Tom. ‘Shit…’

‘We should leave,’ said Josh. ‘We’ve got this far, we should go.’

‘I’m not afraid of some fucking tramp.’ The other two looked at Kyle, surprised by the sudden anger in his voice. ‘I’m not. Three of us, one of him. So what? Let’s fuckin’ have him.’ Kyle swung his flashlight round, actually looking for someone.

Tom and Josh looked at each other. Both seemed amazed and taken aback at how suddenly allegiances had changed. It had been two against one all night. But now it was a different two, a different one.

Kyle stepped forward into the room. Floorboards creaked beneath him. ‘Come on, let’s find the fucker.’

He set off into the house.

Josh and Tom shared a look once more. From off inside the house, they heard the sound of Kyle descending wooden steps.

‘Come on,’ said Josh, ‘let’s —’

Kyle’s scream silenced them.

 

Damien was lost to everything except his own pleasure, his own gratification.

Claire rode him hard, pushing right down, pulling right up again, and again, and again. And he loved it. All thoughts of morality, his wife and kids, his job, his life, were gone. Nothing existed outside of this moment.

He felt himself building up to his biggest finish for years. Eyes open, round, the irises totally circular. Most men closed their eyes as they climaxed, but not Damien. His widened. His wife had once said, before she stopped caring, when he came it looked like he died.

But now he was getting ready, eyes bulging, face contorted. Nearly there…

And then he saw it.

‘Jesus…’ he screamed.

Claire took that as encouragement, rode him even harder.

Beneath her Damien squirmed, tried to get away.

‘Jesus Christ… Jesus, it’s… fuck…’

He put his hands on her, pushed her backwards. She resisted, not wanting to move, as into the moment as he was. She stared down at him, anger in her eyes. ‘Wrong time to get a fucking conscience, Damien…’

He pushed her away from him, stood up. ‘It’s…’ He stood there, trousers around his ankles, rapidly diminishing erection, clothes stained and torn from the forest floor and, unable to move, pointed.

Claire, her underwear half pulled off, stockings ripped, with an expression that indicated she clearly wasn’t happy with Damien, followed his gaze.

‘Shit…’

Night vision had revealed it to them. Right beside where they had been and neither had noticed. The transgression Claire had desired, right above them. And suddenly she didn’t want it any more. Neither of them did.

The body hung from a branch of a nearby oak tree. The noose tight, the head at an angle showing the neck had clearly been broken. Jeans, leather jacket, plaid shirt, boots.

That was what they saw. That was enough.

Barely pausing to gather up their discarded clothing, Claire and Damien turned and ran.

And didn’t stop till they reached the car.

 

‘If I can just get this door open, ladies and gentlemen…’

Malcolm pulled hard at the rusted, corrugated metal barrier at the side of the warehouse. It refused to budge, the brown, flaking metal sharp enough to dig into his hands. Tetanus, thought Malcolm. That’s all I need.

‘They said… they said they would leave it open for us… unlocked…’

One of the crowd stepped forward, the big guy with the footballer’s wife type on his arm. He grabbed the door from Malcolm and, almost one-handed, pulled it open. The crowd gave a round of applause. The man bowed.

‘Must have, must have loosened it for you…’ Malcolm laughed as he spoke. The crowd laughed politely in return.

‘Right, let’s get inside.’

He stepped forward. They followed him, one by one. He spoke as he walked.

‘It was in this very warehouse, ladies and gentlemen, that Fiona Welch kept her captives imprisoned. Boxed up, terrified to speak, to move, even. She fed them dog food to keep them alive.’ A few reactions to that fact. Just what he had expected. He was beginning to enjoy t. . .