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Back The Family Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (117)
  1. Also by
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Epigraph
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
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  24. 19
  25. 20
  26. 21
  27. 22
  28. 23
  29. 24
  30. 25
  31. 26
  32. 27
  33. 28
  34. 29
  35. 30
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  112. 107
  113. 108
  114. 109
  115. 110
  116. Teaser chapter
  117. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Even though it’s over, I have lived my very best life. Because of you.

Do what you need to do, Wild. Remember to eat, to take care of yourself. If you want to hide away, that’s okay. If you want to work, don’t let them stop you.

And know that whatever you’re doing, however bad it gets, I’m with you. I will always be with you.

I love you.
Adam

And so the tears came, grief laying its claim on Wildeve, wrenching its debt from the well inside. Rarely, she cried. A handful of times in her thirty-six years. She buried her face in the cushion, the fabric growing damp against her skin.

When she had composed herself, when the tears were drying to salt on her cheeks and she had splashed them away with cold water, when she had dressed in clean clothes and found her keys, the questions she had been trying to ignore elbowed their way to the front.

She and Adam had never kept secrets.

They had lived and breathed The Doll Maker case, discussing it over breakfast, in the car, the bath, in bed, in those gaps between sex and a few snatched hours of sleep.

So what was he doing when he died?

And why hadn’t he told her?

26

26

Monday 30th July 2018, 5:00 P.M.

Major Incident Room, Rayleigh police station

Five faces pinned to the wall of the Major Incident Room. Five bodies photographed in situ.

Ordinary men and women. All with lives. All with hopes and secrets. All with families and friends, ex-lovers and enemies. Some with money worries, struggling to get by, some with thriving businesses and pensions, a gilded future ahead. Illnesses. Scars. Histories. Full of the joys and tragedies that make us human.

All dead.

Even though DS Wildeve Stanton had seen hundreds like them before, the contrast between the photographs of the victims before they were killed and the images taken at the crime scene was a repeated kick in the gut.

Grinning. Natural. Hair mussed by the wind. Celebrating a family occasion. A pint down the pub. Tanned and on holiday. Versus. The vacant stare of victimhood.

Seventeen years ago, Wildeve had stood in a bedroom in a house with her first dead body. It had belonged to her grandfather, the joker who had produced coins from behind her ear, the friendly bear who slipped her chocolate limes, the war veteran who went to bed early on Bonfire Night because the crack of fireworks terrified him. Except it wasn’t her grandfather. His face, yes, but a mask carved from wax. His body, but an empty sack. Nothing more, nothing less.

Her grandfather had left with his last breath.

And these bodies found amongst the branches and dried leaves and insects carried the same aura of absence. Abandoned husks. But they had all been somebody once, two or three burning brighter than the others, perhaps, but all ablaze with individuality.