FORGOTTEN VICTIM an absolutely gripping crime mystery with a massive twist (Detective Rachel King Thrillers Book 4) Read online

  FORGOTTEN

  VICTIM

  An absolutely gripping crime mystery with a massive twist

  Helen H. Durrant

  Detective Rachel King Thrillers Book 4

  First published 2020

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  © Helen H. Durrant 2020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Helen H. Durrant to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78931-554-7

  CONTENTS

  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

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Epilogue

  ALSO BY HELEN H. DURRANT

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  Prologue

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  Finn Kendal nudged his mate. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Don’t be daft,” Jack said.

  “Well, my mum does. She reckons this place is haunted,” Finn replied.

  “Come on! You don’t believe all that stuff, do you?”

  “Dunno, but she’s usually right.”

  Jack Handley shivered, his young eyes scouring the dark interior of the old mill for any glimmer of light. “It’s bloody dark, I know that. And it stinks.”

  After years of decay and neglect, Shawcross Mill did indeed smell. The bags of rubbish which fly tippers had dumped in the yard didn’t help either. None of that bothered Finn. To him, the disused and crumbling building was a great playground, a place to explore and ride his bike, away from the traffic.

  He led Jack through the hole in the rear wall and into what had once been a huge weaving shed. “Isn’t it great?” He smiled, waving his arms at the rusting spinning machines, dark hulks stacked in the shadows against the wall. “My grandad worked on them. Made his chest bad in the end.” He crept over and ran his hand over an ancient loom, silent relic from a bygone age.

  It was a sad end for a building that had once provided the livelihood for thousands. Shawcross dated from the days when cotton was king, and Manchester supplied the world. Not that the kids were interested in any of that, nor were they impressed by the rusting plaque on the wall proclaiming it to be one of the oldest mills in the area. To them it was an adventure playground, far more appealing than any park.

  Every time he left the house, Finn’s mother warned him not to go near the place. Her warnings fell on deaf ears. Finn had a mind of his own and, anyway, what could go wrong? He knew Shawcross like the back of his hand.

  “Hear that noise?” Jack asked. “It is bloody haunted. Your mam was right.”

  Finn crouched down and pulled him closer to the wall. “That’s no ghost, it’s Spider — he uses this place for dealing. Keep your gob shut and he won’t see us.”

  “Spider. That maniac? He’s a violent bastard and he doesn’t give a toss who he hurts. I’m not waiting around to get caught by him. Last week he slashed George’s arm. Made a right mess.” George was Jack’s older brother.

  “Shut it!” Finn hissed. “He’s coming this way!”

  A gruff voice called out into the gloom. “Who’s there?”

  “We need to move.” Finn nudged his friend and together they crawled back towards the hole they’d just climbed through.

  “Gotcha, you little shit! I’ll teach you to spy on me.” Spider yanked Finn to his feet.

  “We weren’t!” he screamed. “I thought the place were empty.”

  “What’s happening?” shouted a second voice.

  “Damn kids. I’ll deal with them.”

  “They’re only lads, Spider, let ’em go.”

  Finn felt the grip on his arm loosen. “Run!” he yelled to Jack.

  The two boys scarpered, but not the way they’d come in. They headed off in the opposite direction, deeper into the mill, through the weaving shed and into a narrow corridor and then into another much smaller space. Rainwater had got in through the ceiling and the floor was wet. “Let’s hide over there,” Finn gasped. He dived behind a pile of boxes and skidded along the floorboards.

  There was a loud crack as the rotten floor gave way under his weight. Screaming for help, Finn fell through into the darkness below.

  “You okay?” Jack shouted. “I’ll come down.” He cast a quick glance behind — thankfully there was no sign of Spider. “Finn? You there?” There was no answer. “Finn!” he called again. “I’m trying to get down, grab my legs! Where are you? It’s pitch black.”

  “Turn your phone on, div, get some light,” Finn groaned.

  Finn watched the light from Jack’s phone cast eerie shadows on the walls as the other boy climbed down to him.
The place was small — a cellar, perhaps? Finn hadn’t been in here before, which was odd because he thought he’d explored every inch of the mill. “Ring your mum, get some help,” he said.

  Jack gave his mobile a shake. “There’s no signal down here. Where are we anyway? It looks like some sort of cave.”

  Finn sat up, brushed himself down and looked around the strange little room. “Oh God. What’s that smell?”

  “It’ll be rubbish. No one’s been down here in years.” Jack pointed to the brick walls. “Look at the size of them cobwebs.”

  “We’ve got to get out. That smell is doing my head in,” Finn said.

  Jack helped his mate to his feet and the pair of them crept around, feeling the walls, looking for a way out. “There’s no door,” Jack whispered, “and there’s mud all over the floor. What is this place?”

  “Dunno, but it stinks something awful,” Finn said.

  “Dead cat?” Jack suggested.

  “How’d it get in?”

  “Never mind that, how do we get out? We can’t climb back up, there’s nothing to stand on.”

  Finn took the phone, shone it around the walls and spotted an area where the brickwork was crumbling and masonry had fallen on to the floor. He raised his leg and gave it a kick. It didn’t take much to send bricks and cement crashing down, revealing what looked like the entrance to a small tunnel. “The cat must have come in round the back somehow and squeezed in through there. Perhaps we could get out the same way.”

  “Leave it be,” Jack said. “It could lead anywhere. We’ll get lost.”

  But Finn wasn’t listening. He was shining Jack’s phone into the dark tunnel. “We should give it a go. What else do we do? We can’t get out the way we got in.”

  Before Jack could stop him, Finn had shifted a few bricks and climbed through. “It’s even smellier in here,” he called back.

  “Come out! It’s dangerous. The ceiling might fall in on you.”

  “It’s okay, Jack. I think I’ve found something to stand on. There’s something in here we can use, it’s a box or summat, but you’ll have to help me drag it out.” He moved towards a dark shape to one side of the tunnel.

  Jack’s voice was shaking. “What is it?” he asked.

  Finn was fast losing it and very frightened. The tunnel was like a prison — narrow, dark, and there was that smell. He didn’t do confined spaces and wanted out fast. “We have to get out, Jack.”

  Finn held Jack’s phone aloft and screamed. On the floor were the remnants of a human body.

  Chapter One

  Tuesday

  “What is this place?” DS Elwyn Pryce asked.

  DCI Rachel King surveyed the dilapidated pile of bricks and wondered what it was still doing here. Similar buildings in Ancoats had been converted into swanky flats or flattened and the land built on. “Shawcross Mill.” She pointed to the plaque on the rusting gate giving the date of the building. “Look at that. This is a piece of history, Elwyn. It’s been here since the early nineteenth century. It must be one of the first mills in Ancoats.”

  Elwyn kicked a bag of rubbish out of the way. “Shame it’s been left to rot, then. Shouldn’t a building this old be listed or something, done up and kept for posterity?”

  “It’d take a fortune to do that, and I believe it’s still owned by the Shawcross family,” she said. “Mathew Shawcross lives out near me somewhere. We’ll be visiting, so you can ask him yourself why it’s been left to go to wrack and ruin.”

  “Perhaps he’s holding out for a developer to make him an offer. Most of the other mills in Ancoats have been snapped up and turned into flats. Have you seen the price of some of them?”

  Rachel shot him a quizzical look. Was ‘developer’ an oblique reference to Jed McAteer, her long-time on-and-off love? She dismissed the thought almost as fast as it had occurred to her. Elwyn wasn’t given to smart comments at her expense. “Again, too costly,” she said. “Speaking of property, how’s your search for a new home going?”

  “I’ve decided to go for the one up the road from my sister,” the Welshman told her. “It’s a reasonable price, and now that Marie and me have split, it’ll be plenty big enough.”

  A sensible decision, in Rachel’s opinion. “Ffion will be able to keep an eye on you, make sure you eat properly.”

  “I don’t want her wasting her time running after me. Ffion has her own life to lead.”

  “I’m sure she loves running after you, Elwyn. You’re her baby brother. You’re very lucky to have her.”

  They were met at the mill entrance by two figures in white forensic suits. Dr Judith Glover, a friend of Rachel’s, known as Jude to the team, and her colleague, Dr Jason Fox.

  “The air’s a bit stale in there,” Jude said, clearing her throat. “It’s a bad one, worse than we first thought. He’s been there a while, and there’s not a lot left. He’s mostly bones.”

  “Murder?” Elwyn asked. “Or is it some poor homeless bloke who bedded down for the night and died of hypothermia?”

  “Definitely murder,” Jude said. “He was sealed up in there, in a tunnel under the floor. I don’t know exactly what killed him yet, but from the look of his knee joints, he could have been shot. I need to get him back and do the PM for that. But be warned, it’ll take a while to get you anything useful.”

  Rachel felt a sudden rush of sympathy. “The poor man. Are you saying he was shot in the legs and left to die?”

  Jude nodded. “It’s a possibility. It looks to me as if he was left in the tunnel and then it was bricked up behind him. The bricks the boys broke through are more modern, and put in far more recently than the surrounding masonry.”

  The idea made Rachel squirm. “I can’t imagine what he must have gone through, left like that to die in the dark and all alone.”

  “How d’you know it’s a man?” Elwyn asked.

  “His clothing,” Jude said. “Granted, they’re in tatters, but they’re definitely a man’s. One thing that might help, the body was lying on a pile of newspapers — possibly to mop up the blood if he was beaten prior to being shot. We’ll take the lot to the morgue.”

  “Is there enough of the newsprint left to help with the timescale?” Rachel asked.

  “If we’re lucky, there might be a scrap we can decipher. I doubt his clothing will be of much help, it’s pretty rotten, apart from a leather jacket. That is very distinctive and has an unusual design on the back. We might get something from the remains date-wise, but like I said, that’ll take time. Oh, and there is something else.” She held up an evidence bag. “A Saint Christopher pendant, solid gold with a chunky chain, held by his fingers.”

  “Like he’d snatched it from someone and died clutching it?”

  “That’s a possibility, Rachel, unless it’s his. We’ll run tests.”

  “Thanks, Jude. We’ll have a look before you take him away.”

  Rachel and Elwyn negotiated the rubbish-strewn floor of the weaving shed and into the small room with the jagged hole in the floorboards. A ladder had been temporarily secured in place for the forensic people and Colin Butterfield, the pathologist, to gain access.

  The ageing pathologist had just hauled himself out of the hole as they arrived. His heavy figure was easily recognisable despite the mask and overall. “I’m far too old for this malarkey,” he complained. “It’s a tricky one, Rachel, he’s been dead a while, but we’ll do our best.”

  Elwyn looked down the hole as the pathologist walked away. It was quite a drop. “Should you be clambering down there?” he said to Rachel. “What if you slip?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  With a quick glance around to ensure no one was listening, he nudged her. “Your condition, stupid. The baby.”

  She gave him a faint smile. Irrational as it was, she’d pushed all thoughts of the pregnancy to the back of her mind. She knew full well it was stupid. Her condition was a fact, and eventually the baby would be too. She could only stay in denial for so long. “
Don’t, Elwyn. I know you’ve got my best interests at heart but, please, just let me get on with the job.”

  “I’m only saying. You do need to be careful, you know.”

  “And I will be. Now stop it.”

  Elwyn Pryce was the only person who knew about Rachel’s pregnancy, and that was how she wanted it to stay for now. Elwyn knew what an impulsive person she was. She made decisions on the spur of the moment that often seemed crazy to others, but she trusted her gut instinct, and usually was right to. She hadn’t even told Jed McAteer, the child’s father. “You go first. That way if I do fall, you’ll act as a cushion.”

  “Cheeky.”

  They descended the ladder. The space was small, filthy. Rachel scanned the walls but couldn’t see a door, just the hole in the ceiling they’d just climbed down and a gap in one of the walls which led off into a narrow, dark tunnel where the body lay. “What d’you reckon this place is?”

  “It has to be part of the mill. It could be an old cellar, I suppose.” He wheeled around, looking over the walls. “It looks like a place long forgotten. But this space and that tunnel must have had some function at one time.”

  “Whoever did this could have come and gone along there.” She nodded at the tunnel. “Wonder where it leads?”

  “It’s pretty narrow and not very high. Quite a squeeze if you ask me.”

  One of the forensic investigators leaned down from above. “We think that space and that tunnel is something to do with the sewer system or the canal. We should be able to confirm it from the old plans of the city.”

  They’d do the research. There had to be a record somewhere. “I wonder who put him there? They must have already known the place.” Rachel said to Elwyn. “Who found the body?”

  “Two young lads. According to the officer they spoke to, they definitely didn’t know about it. They live local and often play in the mill.” Elwyn consulted his notebook. “Apparently, they were hiding from someone, did a runner and fell through the rotten floorboards. They found the tunnel looking for a way out, saw the remains and panicked.”