Blood Moon Rising
ALSO BY MARK DAWSON
IN THE SOHO NOIR SERIES
Gaslight
The Black Mile
The Imposter
IN THE JOHN MILTON SERIES
One Thousand Yards
The Cleaner
Saint Death
The Driver
Ghosts
The Sword of God
Salvation Row
IN THE BEATRIX ROSE SERIES
In Cold Blood
Blood Moon Rising
Blood and Roses
HONG KONG STORIES VOL. 1
White Devil
Nine Dragons
Dragon Head
STANDALONE NOVELS
The Art of Falling Apart
Subpoena Colada
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Mark Dawson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 978-1503944381
ISBN-10: 1503944387
Cover design by Lisa Horton
To Mrs D, FD and SD
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Preview: BLOOD AND ROSES
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter One
It was three in the morning when Beatrix Rose finally reached the Wiltshire village where Lydia Chisholm made her home. She had been following her for two hours, all the way south from London. She turned the stolen Kawasaki off the A road, passed a cute village pub and then turned sharply behind it and followed a gentle rise to a series of even prettier houses. Beatrix had extinguished the headlamp five minutes earlier, and now she killed the engine and freewheeled to a stop. She flicked out the kickstand and rested the bike on it carefully. Chisholm’s top-of-the-range BMW drove on and parked next to a dark blue Audi A3. Beatrix jogged along the road, keeping close to the thick verge of hawthorn, her rucksack bouncing up and down on her back.
Chisholm and her husband got out, locked the door and climbed the steps from the road to the front door. Chisholm went first, opening the door and stepping inside. Her husband followed. A hall light flicked on.
Beatrix edged closer to the house. Some of the nearby dwellings were thatched, and all of them looked expensive. The mainline station was a ten-minute drive away, and London was ninety minutes by train from there. It was at the edge of a reasonable distance to consider commuting, and Beatrix guessed that the people who did travel in from the village were more likely to be senior staff who had the latitude to work from home. That supposition was borne out by the cars that were parked along the edge of the road: Range Rovers, Porsches, Jaguars, more BMWs. The houses had big extensions, manicured gardens, swimming pools. There was money here, and influence, too. But she had known that already.