The Midnight Killing
THE MIDNIGHT KILLING
Sharon Dempsey
Copyright
Published by AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Copyright © Sharon Dempsey 2022
Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Cover photographs: Shutterstock.com
Sharon Dempsey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008518769
Ebook Edition © December 2021 ISBN: 9780008424497
Version: 2022-06-07
Dedication
For my mum, Jeannie Copeland, who showed me that magic and joy lurked in all the unexpected places.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Keep Reading …
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
The girl wakes. When she opens her eyes she sees nothing but a velvet darkness that seems to wrap around her, making her think of the bog. Her mother always warned her to stay clear of the wetlands, saying that they could suck her down to the depths of hell like quicksand. Once, she’d gone looking for tadpoles and when she’d lifted the jam jar out of the pool it was full of gloomy, gloopy water, coloured with peat tannins. She knows this because Mrs Plunket had taught them all about the bog in nature class. She knows that tadpoles turn into froglets, and that the dry patches of bog are covered with ling heather, bell heather, crowberry and blaeberry. She knows a lot of things, but she does not know where she is or how she has got here.
There is a buzzing sound that she can’t identify, and after a while she realises that it is coming from inside of her. Her head is thrumming, a low drone of pain that makes itself known through sound. She knows that it is strange but can’t figure out why. Nor can she work out why her legs feel as though they have been filled with sludge. They feel numb and as dead as the carcasses hanging in her grandad’s butcher shop.
She is lying on her side and can feel a rough surface against her cheek. Instinct tells her not to move, for movement will bring pain. She wants her mammy. Desperately so. She wants her daddy to lift her up in his big, strong arms, and carry her to bed. She wants to feel the warmth of her sister, Ciara, sleeping close beside her. To hear that chortling, piggy noise she makes when she’s asleep.
Sometimes she fights with Ciara, pinching her arm or pulling her hair. She’s sorry about that now. Wishes she could make up for all the bad things she has ever done. She can’t help the tears coming, prickling her eyes and warming her cheeks.
She tries of think of something nice. Whizzing down the lane on her red bike, the dip of the road and the way it makes her tummy feel bubbly. But then she remembers that the bike has been broken. It’s twisted and battered, and it will be no good for anything but scrap. A desperate sadness swells up in her chest, squeezing out all of the air. She can’t say how or why, but she thinks that she is in danger. That someone has hurt her and will do so again.
No good can come of being in this blackness, this much she knows.
CHAPTER 1
The first time Detective Inspector Danny Stowe saw James McCallum, he was hanging from a tree in the grounds of Osbourne House Grammar school. Corpses never do make good first impressions, he thought. There was no evidence of last-minute regret, no hands still clutching at the neck, no scratch marks suggesting a desperate struggle as the noose’s death grip tightened. A slight breeze rustled the leaves above, while a mist of rain fell softly and somewhere nearby a crow cawed, ignorant of the scene unfolding.
Danny stood at the foot of the hill, glad of the warmth from his North Face jacket, and looked up at the hanging tree. It was a big, old horse chestnut tree, the kind that kids would have been scrabbling along the roots of, seeking out conkers, at the end of September. They would have back in the day, anyway. Now he’s not so sure, what with mobile phones and video games he hasn’t even heard of. He doubted too many of them relied on Mother Nature for entertainment anymore. It was a mighty big tree. Almost all of its leaves had gone. Those that remained were yellowing and brownish, hanging on only until the next heavy breeze stole them away. The trunk was a mossy green and greying brown. Solid and unflinching, the tree had stood as a blind witness to the horror played out under it.
The tech fellas were busy doing their thing. One of them was photographing the scene while another was carrying out a careful examination of the area beneath the tree. On the surface it looked like a straightforward suicide, but Danny had been in the job long enough to never assume. Procedures needed to be carried out, and the man dangling above belonged to some poor family who had yet to be told that their loved one had – most likely – opted out of this life. Selfish bastard. While Danny knew he shouldn’t cast judgement, he also knew it is always the ones left behind who suffer the most.
There was low murmur of chat and somewhere close by someone’s phone rang.
Beyond the hill where the tree sat, at the end of the sweeping driveway, the red-brick school looked formidable and elitist with that old money architecture of spires, gargoyles, arched windows, and heavy wooden doors. Osbourne House Grammar was the kind of school that had a Latin motto, an old boys’ network and a PTA that could raise serious money without trying too hard.
While parts of Belfast smouldered during the Troubles, places like Osbourne House existed as if in a parallel universe. Sure, you could get in with a top grade in the transfer exam, but everyone knows that to make the grade it takes the dedication of an expensive tutor. And once the child was in, it would be all ski trips, swimming galas, hockey games, rowing club, and rugby – none of which comes cheap. It was the type of school people aspired to send their kids to. Not Danny, though. He couldn’t see a family in his future. Not now, anyway.
He listened to the drone of the early morning traffic and the soft mumble of the techs going about their business. It was a small mercy that it was half-term. The school had been closed for the Halloween break from the previous Friday. He didn’t need hundreds of concerned parents and smart-mouthed little arses trying to get close to the scene with their iPhones primed to snap a picture.
It was a grey, dismal day with more than a hint of cold in the air. The kind of October day Belfast did well. A day that would be better spent back in the office, even if it was a dreary shite hole with artificial lighting and bad heating. Danny turned as he heard a car pull through the school gates. Forensic pathologist Raymond Lyons parked his flashy 5 Series, got out, and nodded a greeting to Danny. ‘Some day for it. What have you got for me?’
‘Morning, Raymond. Looks like a suicide hanging, but we need to be sure.’ They took off together, their strides in sync as they approached the scene.
‘Is it a hunch that it’s not as it seems or something else?’
‘You’ll see for yourself. The school caretaker called it in. The old man tried to cut him down but gave up once he realised he was dead. The uniforms got here with the tech fellas about an hour ago and I think the ACC will be making an appearance himself. It’s his old school, apparently.’
A uniformed officer stood on guard and nodded as they approached.
‘Sergeant,’ Danny said in greeting.
‘Sir.’
‘Anyone other than the caretaker on the premises?’ Danny asked, pleased to see the protocols for respecting the integrity of the site were being upheld. It would have been easy for the first responders to trample all over the scene, assuming it was suicide, but Danny didn’t like assumptions.
‘No, sir. He’s waiting in his office up at the school.’
‘Right, I’ll send someone up to get a statement.’
The hill was steep enough to give the suggestion of being a manmade mound; perhaps a burial site for a village of people long gone. The tree stood like a sentinel at the top, its wide branches spread out against the bruise-grey sky. Once up close, they could see that the man’s face was frozen into a grimace, his mouth wide open and his swollen purple tongue protruding in an almost ludicrous, rapacious fashion. There was something unnerving about seeing the dead when they looked around the same age as yourself, Danny thought. He was clean shaven with a flop of greying, russet hair, the kind that would have been fiery ginger as a kid but had tarnished to a duller shade with age.
Only an hour before, Danny had had the call from his new boss, Assistant Chief Constable Alastair Boyne. Some wag at the station had nicknamed him Battle, in honour of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and it had stuck.
‘You free, big man?’ Boyne liked to talk to everyone like they were his new best friend.
‘As free as a bird, Battle, if you don’t count the pile of paperwork sitting on my desk. What’ve you got?’
‘Take a run down to Osborne House Grammar. They’ve called in a suicide on the grounds. White male, mid-thirties.’
‘Suicide? Why do you need me to go?’
‘Something’s not right about it. They’ll fill you in when you get there.’
Danny had showered and grabbed a coffee before leaving his recently acquired house off the Ravenhill Road. The novelty of living alone had already worn off. Somewhere on the other side of town his ex-wife, Amy, would be starting her day, and he wondered if she still thought about him. Most likely she was too wrapped up in herself to give him a second thought. As churlish as he felt, he had reached peak don’t-give-a-fuck and had moved on as much as he could. She didn’t exactly deserve his sympathy, but deep down he still felt a connection to her and was left with a sense of bitter disappointment that it hadn’t worked out.
He forced his mind back to the job and watched as Lyons went about his task.
‘The knot on the noose looks secure and well-executed.’ He was speaking as much to himself as to Danny.
Lyons stood staring up at the body, which was about two feet off the ground.
‘Make sure your people cut above the knot to preserve any DNA for testing and make sure they photograph and preserve the rope. I’ll need to examine the marks around the neck, checking for bruising that is consistent with the rope fibre formation.’
‘Anything out of the ordinary suggesting that it isn’t a straightforward hanging?’ Danny asked.
Lyons shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
They stopped under the tree and peered up at where the rope had been tossed over the branch directly above. Part of the rope was frayed where the caretaker had tried to cut it down.
‘Have you noticed how the rope was wrapped around another branch, before being tied?’ Danny asked.
‘That’s more your job than mine. What do you make of it?’
‘Someone could have used the rope to hoist the body up.’
‘That would take a lot of effort. There’s easier ways to try to make murder look like a suicide.’
‘Yeah and it would require more than one person to lift him,’ Danny agreed.
‘Probably, though he’s not a big fella. He must be around 170 pounds. Maybe five feet nine.’
‘But then why would someone go to this much trouble? Surely, heaving him into the Lagan would have been easier.’
Lyons sighed and spoke in his usual didactic manner. ‘Again, DI Stowe, that’s your job. Mine is more up close and personal with the cadaver itself. Right now, there’s not much more I can do. I’ll let you know what I find when I get him on the table.’
Danny turned to the chief SOCO, Fiona Madden, who was standing nearby. ‘That’s us finished here. You can take him down now but be careful with that rope, and make sure to bag and seal the hands. I’m heading back to the station but call me as soon as you’ve checked his pockets for ID and his phone.’
‘No need to tell me how to do my job, Detective,’ she replied in a Sligo accent.
Danny resisted rolling his eyes and held his hands up as if in surrender before following Raymond Lyons down the hill. Fiona was known for her prickly exterior but he’d bet that her bark was worse than her bite. As he reached the bottom, he turned back for one last look at the scene, just as they began taking the body down. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard a ‘huhh’ sound as the last of the air trapped in James McCallum’s body was dispelled in a watery sigh of death.
CHAPTER 2
Dr Rose Lainey could hardly believe she was still in Belfast. What had intended to be a short-term visit, to attend her mother’s funeral, had developed into a six-month secondment, working alongside her old university friend, Detective Inspector Danny Stowe, in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Her seventeen-year-old self would have shuddered at the notion that she was back here. It was largely Kaitlin’s fault. Reconnecting with her sister and getting to know her nieces and nephews had been a more joyful experience than Rose could have ever guessed. Her brothers hadn’t been so welcoming, but she hoped that, given time, they could reach some sort of understanding. Returning to London would make that more difficult. By sticking around, she was giving her relationship with them the best possible chance.