Siren (A Kate Redman Mystery Read online

  Siren

  A Kate Redman Mystery: Book 9

  Siren

  Copyright © 2016 Celina Grace. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  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

  THE END

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Prologue

  The most sought-after property in the West Country town of Abbeyford lay in what was known as The Old Town; a small collection of ancient buildings, situated within a half-mile square area. There, one could find the remains of the fifteenth century monastery that gave the town its name, the old Corn Exchange that sat on the edge of the original town square, and the few streets of Tudor buildings that lined the roads that radiated off from the square itself. The streets were cobbled, the houses timbered, with small, many-paned windows and doorways that a man of average height would find difficult to enter without banging his head.

  Mia Farraday was the lucky owner of one of those very houses, along with her husband Simon. She picked her way across the cobbles in her heels, knowing from experience that to hurry across them was to court a sprained ankle or worse. She carried a Cath Kidston oilcloth handbag in one hand and a furled umbrella in the other, because the morning’s sunshine was already being threatened by looming black clouds. Mia reached the comparative safety of the pavement, where cobbles gave way to flagstones, and reached into her bag for the keys to the house. Both she and Simon used the house as a temporary office, as well as renting it out as a holiday home, and Mia was there today to retrieve a file she’d left behind the last time she’d been there.

  The front door was painted black, with a shiny brass doorknocker affixed to the wood, and the number of the house beneath it. Mia pushed open the front door and entered the tiny hallway. She was a small woman, but even she ducked her head a little to be sure of clearing the lintel. She shut the front door behind her, clicked on the hallway light, and put down her handbag.

  Straightening up, she caught sight of herself in the mirror that hung on the wall by the door. Afterwards, she was to marvel at how carefree she looked then, how remarkably calm and relaxed. But then, that was the last moment, almost the very last moment of what she was later to think of as ‘Before’. It was the moment where her life remained as yet unchanged, all the trauma and the horror to come in the future, the ‘After’.

  Smiling a little, Mia turned away from the mirror and began to climb the steep, narrow stairs. The house itself was very small; a drawing room downstairs, along with a kitchen, and behind the house, a courtyard garden. Upstairs, on two further floors, were two bedrooms, one so tiny as to almost be called a box room and a bathroom converted from one of the other original bedrooms. Mia remembered that she’d left that particular file in the main bedroom. By the bed it had been, hadn’t it? She reached the upstairs landing and pushed open the door, humming a tune she’d heard on the radio that morning.

  The room was in darkness, both blinds and the curtains drawn at the window. Mia stopped at the entrance to the room, the hum dying on her lips. The room was close, slightly stuffy, and there was a smell in the air, something that reminded her briefly of the food waste bin at home, when it hadn’t been emptied for a while. She hesitated, standing in the doorway, and then reached out to snap on the main overhead light.

  There was something on the bed, incongruous against the white linen sheets, a black mass of rubber and leather and cord. Breathing hard, Mia took in the shape of the person beneath the dark covering, the dark spattering against the white pillow cases, reddish-brown spots and splashes that had flown all over the bedclothes, and up the pale cream paint of the wall behind the headboard. Heart thudding, she looked and saw the shape of the head behind the leather mask, crushed in like an empty eggshell. The hands, anonymous behind black leather gloves, were handcuffed to the top rail of the bed.

  Mia didn’t scream. Instead, she backed out of the room slowly until the landing wall arrested her progress. The strength ran out of her legs just as quickly as if someone had scythed them out from under her, and she thumped down on the floor at the top of the stairs. She reached for her phone with hands shaking so much she could scarcely grasp it. It took three attempts to hit the right icons on the screen and as she waited for the operator to answer, she remembered how she’d looked in the mirror downstairs, just those few minutes ago, and how she would probably never look that way again. Not now, because that was how she had looked Before. And now, it was After.

  Chapter One

  Detective Inspector Mark Olbeck wrung his hands. Actually wrung them. Kate Redman looked at him quizzically for a moment and then gently poked him in the side. They were both sitting in Olbeck’s car.

  “Why are you doing that with your hands?”

  Olbeck looked sheepish. “I’m just nervous, I guess.”

  “Aw.” Kate gave his arm a squeeze. “You do know this is just a preliminary chat, don’t you? You’re not actually going to meet any of the kids this time?”

  “I know that. I’m still nervous.”

  “You’ll be fine. Should we go in?”

  Olbeck squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, blowing his cheeks outward on a puff of breath. “I wish Jeff were here.”

  “I know,” said Kate. “I’m not much of a substitute.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that, Kate – God, I’m glad you’re here. Really glad. It’s just – it’ll be me and Jeff hopefully actually doing this together. I just wish he could be here from the start, that’s all.”

  “I know,” Kate said again. She squeezed his arm once more. “He won’t miss out on any of the important bits, you know.”

  “You’re right,” Olbeck said in a decisive tone. He pulled the keys from the engine and put them in his coat pocket. “Let’s go in.”

  Kate and Olbeck got out of the car and began to walk towards the open door of the community centre. Kate could see the sign taped to the door as they approached it. Abbeyford Fostering and Adoption Group Information Evening, she read, as they walked into the entrance hall.

  “By the way,” Olbeck said suddenly, as they approached the inner set of double doors. “Don’t think I’m not aware of what this must be like for you. I really appreciate you coming along and giving me some moral support, Kate. Really appreciate it.”

  “Oh, don’t be daft,” Kate said, and gave him a friendly nudge with her elbow. “That’s what friends are for.”

  She was the one who pushed open the doors, Olbeck following closely behind her. The
re were a few people standing about, a table full of leaflets and clipboards to one side and about twenty chairs arranged in a circle. A woman spotted them standing rather hesitantly by the doors and came over to them, a welcoming smile on her face.

  “Hello there, I’m Janet. Have we got you down as registered?”

  Olbeck nodded. “I’m Mark Olbeck – I think we spoke on the phone earlier?”

  “Oh, Mark, yes, of course. The policeman, isn’t it?” Janet took a look at the paper she held in one hand, obviously a list of names. Then she looked at Kate with slight puzzlement. “So, you must be...Jeff?”

  Kate chuckled. “No, I’m Kate. Just a friend, coming along for support.”

  They all laughed at the mistake. “Jeff’s in the States on a lecture tour at the moment—” Olbeck began, before his mobile phone began to ring incessantly from the inner pocket of his jacket. “Sorry, Janet, would you excuse me?” He ducked away a little, just as Kate’s own phone began to ring as well.

  “Sorry,” Kate mumbled, seeing everyone in the room begin to look over in what looked like disapproval. She followed Olbeck from the room, lifting the phone to her ear.

  “Kate, mate,” Theo’s voice said into her ear. “You with Mark?”

  “Yes. Was that Anderton ringing him just now?”

  “Yup. You both need to come in. We’ve got a pretty nasty case here.”

  Kate glanced across to Olbeck, who met her gaze with a grimace. She could tell from the disappointment on his face that he was well aware that they wouldn’t be attending the fostering and adoption information session that evening. She rolled her eyes in a way she hoped was suitably sympathetic.

  Theo was talking, telling her about the body found; tied to a bed, bound and gagged with significant head injuries. Kate listened without saying much, conscious of the fact there were several people almost within earshot.

  “Where are we meeting you?” she asked Theo as his briefing came to a close, feeling a not altogether unpleasant feeling of tension in the pit of her stomach. She noted the address details that Theo gave her and mentally raised her eyebrows. The Old Town was not an area associated with crime, let alone violent death.

  Saying goodbye, she looked up to see Olbeck putting away his own phone with a purposeful look. “Was that Theo?” he asked.

  “Yep. We’re heading for Old Town, right?”

  “Right.” Olbeck looked back towards the hall and sighed. “I’d better go and make my excuses to Janet.”

  “Never mind.” Kate tried to sound both sympathetic and reassuring. “There’ll be other meetings. I’ll meet you back at the car.”

  In the car, with Olbeck driving towards the address that Theo had given, Kate asked if there had been an identification yet.

  “Yes, there has. Didn’t Theo tell you?” Kate shook her head. “The victim’s wife identified him. Well, she found him, poor woman. His name was Simon Farraday, fifty-three years old, local businessman.”

  “So do we have any theories yet?”

  It was Olbeck’s turn to shake his head. “Murder by person or persons unknown, that’s all that Anderton had, so far. Ah, here we are.”

  They circled Market Square, where the house was located, rather pointlessly. Blue and white crime scene tape blocked off the doorway and the pavements nearby were packed with uniformed and non-uniformed officers, SOCOs, and a small but rapidly growing phalanx of press journalists and photographers being reluctantly held at bay. Olbeck had to stop the car and reverse carefully down the narrow street until they could join the main road.

  “Come on,” Kate said, in affectionate exasperation. “You can’t get a parking space there at the best of times, let alone when there’s just been a murder.”

  “I know. I wasn’t thinking properly.” Olbeck dived triumphantly into a space at the curb as another car pulled out. “Right, let’s get in there and see what’s happening.”

  The entrance hall to the house was very small and seemed even smaller with the amount of white-coated people milling about and moving through it. Kate and Olbeck suited up in the little tent that had been hastily erected on the pavement directly outside the front door and stepped through. The stairs beyond were steep and narrow and the ceiling low enough even for Kate to worry about bumping her head. They climbed upwards, cautiously, emerging into a slightly more spacious hallway on the first floor. Looking up, Kate saw Detective Chief Inspector Anderton’s head emerge from over the staircase railings on the next floor up and he shouted down to them to keep climbing.

  Kate had attended many crime scenes, and some had been more difficult to bear than others. As she walked up the final set of stairs to emerge onto the landing, and to look into the bedroom beyond, she could smell that distinctive metallic scent in the air. It was the scent of blood that was, even at this early stage, beginning to decay. She licked her lips nervously, bracing herself for the sight of the body. She was reminded of the horror-film scene of a case involving a multiple murder, several years ago now. But it wouldn’t be that bad, would it? There was just one victim here, after all.

  She and Olbeck moved around to the doorway of the bedroom and looked in. Kate let out her breath in a short puff, half relief and half shock. It wasn’t the blood so much – as crime scenes go, Kate had definitely seen worse. What was a shock was the body itself. They’d arrived so early that the body was still as it had been when it had been discovered: handcuffed to the top rail of the bed and dressed head to foot in black leather. Even the face was covered, save for a slit that presumably hid the mouth. The outline of the skull beneath the black leather looked like the shell of an egg that had been tapped too hard with a spoon.

  Breathing shallowly, Kate stood for a moment with Olbeck, taking in the scene. She had a fleeting moment of wondering how exactly he would take to this type of thing once he became a father. A moment later, she was chastising herself for that thought. Hadn’t she once been a mother, if only for a short time? Did it really make any difference?

  Shaking off those thoughts, she looked up at her friend. “What do you think?”

  Olbeck frowned. He wasn’t squeamish, thought Kate, but he was sensitive. That was partly what made him such an excellent detective. “Does that mask thing look like it’s been moved?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Olbeck stepped closer to the body. Up close, it looked even less human than it had appeared from the doorway. Just a lifeless black-clad dummy, a mannequin, a leather scarecrow. “I mean, it looks as though someone’s lifted it up a bit. Doesn’t it?”

  Kate bent forward to look more closely. As she did, there was a minor scrimmage outside in the corridor and then the milling crowds of forensic workers parted to let through a welcome addition to the scrum. Detective Sergeant Chloe Wapping’s blonde head came into view, and at the sight of Kate she broke into a smile, quickly subdued as she took in the scene.

  “Bird,” she said, coming up to stand next to Kate.

  “Bird,” said Kate, concealing her own grin. She didn’t know why Chloe and she had started using this absurd greeting, but it seemed to have settled into a tradition that always made her smile.

  Olbeck rolled his eyes. “Is this really the time?”

  “Oh, go on with you,” Chloe said, giving him an irreverent dig in the ribs. “Besides, that poor bugger doesn’t mind, he’s past feeling anything. Poor sod.”

  All three of them regarded the body once more. The initial shock was over, and now Kate could feel the usual calmness of her professionalism settling over her. She almost snuggled into it, as if into a comfort blanket. Looking quite dispassionately at the body by now, she noted the handcuffs that fastened the wrists to the brass headrail of the bed. The cuffs themselves were decorated with a jarringly frivolous strip of pink marabou feathers. The feathers on both cuffs were stiffened with blood, dried into hard little clumps.

  Chloe leaned in so she could murmur into Kate’s ear. “I know I may be jumping to some rather sexist conclusions, but is it lik
ely that a man would use those sort of handcuffs? With another man, I mean?”

  As one, the two of them looked across at Olbeck, who snorted. “I’m bloody gay, not a sadomasochist. Why would I know?”

  “Alright, sorry.” Kate patted his arm. “Surely if we have an identification, we’ll know more about his sexual orientation by now, even if it’s relevant. Anyway, I thought he was married? Didn’t his wife find him?”

  As if he’d overheard her, Anderton made his way through the crowd towards them. “This house is owned by the Farradays, Simon and Mia. They use it as a holiday let and sometimes as a temporary office for Simon Farraday’s business.” He’d reached the three of them by now and looked over at the body. “His wife had no idea he’d be here, apparently. She thought he was on a work trip to Cheltenham.”

  A silence fell, as much as silence could in that bustling room. Kate, observing the body again, frowned. “Hang on a minute, you said his wife identified him, correct?”

  “Right,” said Anderton.

  “Well, how? His face is completely covered. How did she recognise him?”

  Chloe’s face twitched in what could have been disgust or amusement. “Perhaps she recognised the leather outfit. Maybe she’s into all this, too.”

  Anderton looked as if he weren’t amused. “No, she identified him because she pulled that mask up to have a look at his face.” Shocked, the three other police officers turned to him. “Yes, I know, I know. And don’t worry, she’s under enough suspicion as it is, being his wife.”

  “So, when can we—” Kate began, but Anderton shook his head.

  “She’s not in any fit state to be questioned, yet,” he said. “I thought for one moment, when we first got here, she’d have to be sedated.”

  “Where is she now?” asked Chloe.

  “Back at the Farradays’ main residence, with Rav and a few family liaison officers.” Anderton looked at his watch. “The pathologist should be here soon, so I suggest we reconvene somewhere less crowded and take it from there.”

  He stood back to let the others leave the room before him. Kate took a single look back as she passed through the doorway. Even knowing the victim’s identity didn’t make the body look any less...unearthly. Unusually for her, she had to repress a shiver as she looked and then turned her head away.