Villain
Villain
Caro Savage
For CPC
Contents
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
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Acknowledgments
More from Caro Savage
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
1
It was an exceptionally cold winter’s evening in Chiswick in West London. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Colder than the hinges of hell. Colder than a witch’s tit. Colder than a bucket of snowman’s piss. Colder than…
The homeless man lying in the doorway tried to recall yet some further expression for the cold weather. He was playing this little game in an attempt to distract himself from the icy chill that was biting through to the very marrow of his bones.
Shivering, he huddled deeper into his sleeping bag, which he had additionally cocooned with sheets of newspaper and bits of cardboard boxes. With his fingerless mittens, he reached for the small bottle of cheap brandy he’d purchased earlier that day from a nearby off-licence. He held it up to the light and examined it with a glum expression on his face. Empty.
Illuminated Christmas decorations hung from the lamp posts all along the affluent street in which he’d chosen to bunk down on this particular evening, their glittering lights projecting a wholly illusory warmth. He didn’t know the exact date, but he knew Christmas wasn’t far off, although it was kind of hard to get into the festive spirit when you were homeless.
If anyone had asked his name, if anyone had cared, he would have told them it was Dave Boakes. He came from Bristol originally but had ended up here on the streets of London by dint of a long chain of unfortunate occurrences the nature of which he didn’t like to dwell on too much.
These days, Dave just concentrated on getting through life day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and not for the first time he wished he owned a watch so that he could mark each of those seconds passing by. The only problem was that time seemed to pass so much more slowly when you were cold.
Dave had positioned himself strategically near the entrance to an expensive restaurant in the hope that the passing patrons would feel sorry for him and give him some money. In front of him was a metal mug in which he’d placed a few coins in order to stimulate people’s generosity, but he hadn’t had much luck so far this evening.
He looked over at the restaurant. What he wouldn’t give to be in there right now, sitting in the warm, tucking into a nice juicy steak accompanied by a big glass of red wine. He felt his mouth begin to water.
He blinked the fantasy away. No point in tormenting oneself. He turned his head away from the restaurant and as he did so a movement caught his eye a little way down the road. Squinting, he tried to make out what it was.
At first, in the dimness of the shadows, everything was indistinct, but then he saw it again, a twitch of motion there, low down, by the back of a smart-looking S-Type Jaguar, one of several very nice cars parked along this road. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a figure clad in black kneeling down doing… something.
Intrigued, Dave squinted harder, but it was difficult to make out details for the figure was operating just beyond the pool of light cast by the nearest street lamp, and they were wearing some kind of hat pulled down low over their face which obscured their features. However, some instinct told him that whoever they were and whatever they were doing, they were up to no good. So he stayed completely still as he watched, figuring it was probably in his best interests not to draw too much attention to his presence. At times like this the relative invisibility of being a homeless man conferred a distinct advantage.
After a short while, the figure stood up, fluidly detached itself from the car and melted away into the shadows.
Dave blinked and looked again but it had vanished completely, like some spectral presence that had never really been there in the first place. Much as he’d recently polished off a bottle of brandy, he was pretty certain he hadn’t been imagining what he’d just seen.
At that point, the door of the restaurant swung open, letting out a gust of noise which made him turn his head sharply, all thoughts of the mysterious figure dropping from his mind. He saw that a couple had emerged into the chilly night and it looked like they were heading in his direction. A bolt of anticipation shot through him. Here was his opportunity, the chance to earn some money.
The man ambled along in a self-assured swagger, his black leather jacket flapping open despite the freezing weather. The woman was wrapped in a figure-hugging fur coat, below which a pair of slender long legs ended in towering stiletto heels. The woman, in particular, looked quite glamorous, like some kind of model or actress, and both of them looked considerably well-off.
The couple were laughing, the man saying something indiscernible in a low rumble, the woman tittering in response, their puffs of breath frosting in the night air. It sounded like they were tipsy, bathing in the high of a good evening.
They were drawing closer, the woman’s heels clacking sharply on the pavement as she tottered along a little unsteadily, her arm hooked into the man’s elbow, their conversation becoming more clearly audible the nearer they got.
‘Now remember you promised me,’ the man was saying in a rough, gravelly voice.
‘When we get back to the car,’ the woman replied, with a coy twinkle in her eye.
‘I’ve been waiting for it all evening,’ he said with a leering grin. ‘And I can’t wait any longer.’
‘You won’t be disappointed,’ she purred seductively.
Dave readied himself for their imminent approach. They were only a few metres away now. He projected the appropriate air of two parts dejected to one part cheerful and one part humble, a recipe he’d spent some time refining.
‘Spare some change?’ he said as they passed, making sure not to sound too whiny.
The man stopped abruptly, pulling the woman to a halt beside him. He peered down at Dave, the smile dropping off his face. Up close, Dave absorbed his appearance – a large diamond stud in his left ear, his loud shirt open at the collar revealing a heavy gold chain around his neck, a chunky, expensive-looking watch on his left wrist and one of those rings with a gold sovereign in it on the little finger of his right hand. He certainly didn’t look short of cash, that was for sure. And he appeared to be coked up, if the wide twitching eyes and the clenching jaw were anything to go by.
Dave suddenly felt uneasy. Just beneath the surface, he could detect the whiff of violence, as if this was the kind of bloke who thought nothing of doling out a beating to anyone who looked at him the wrong way. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. He wondered if the man was going to assault him. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had done so. He felt a faint quake of fear. He gulped and braced himself for a possible kicking.
‘Taters, innit?’ growled the man.
Dave had no idea what the man was talking about. He could have been talking Mongolian for all Dave knew.
The man tutted and shook his head in mock scorn at Dave’s ignorance.
‘Taters-in-the-mould,’ he said slowly, enunciating each word.
Now Dave understood.
It was Cockney rhyming slang.
Potatoes in the mould. Cold.
It was a London thing. It also meant the bloke wasn’t posh. Even if he w
as well-off.
Dave nodded slowly, mentally adding it to his list of idioms. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s bloody cold.’
The man eyed him for a few moments, then fished inside his leather jacket and pulled out a diamond-encrusted gold money clip containing a fat wad of notes. Dave eyed it hungrily and licked his lips.
The man ostentatiously plucked out a note. It was red in colour.
Surely not…
Dave swallowed and wondered if he was seeing things. His heart began to beat a little harder.
The man bent down and dropped the note in Dave’s metal cup, alongside the ten- and twenty-pence pieces. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.
Dave stared at it, speechless. It was indeed a fifty-pound note. He picked it up. It was real. Crisp and firm. He wasn’t dreaming. Rarely, if ever, did he get to handle one of these. It was miracle enough when he got given a fiver but this was something else. Merry Christmas indeed.
He looked up, stunned with gratitude, but the couple were now walking away, sauntering across the street. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to say thank you.
He looked back down at the note. What sort of person carried around that kind of cash? The bloke must be properly loaded to give away fifty quid just like that.
Fifty quid. His mind swam with the possibilities. This was a game changer. Now he could pay for a warm bed to sleep in tonight. Or he could buy something decent to drink at last. Maybe a nice whisky like Talisker or Highland Park. Or get himself a big slap-up meal. Hell, he could even go into that restaurant right now and order a big juicy steak.
Fingering the note lovingly, he looked up in teary-eyed gratitude at the couple. They were now immersed once more in conversation. Dave suddenly glanced around vigilantly. Best put the money out of sight before some street person or mugger noticed it and tried to take it from him. He quickly tucked the note inside his grubby coat.
Regarding the couple again, he saw that they had now crossed the road and had come to a halt by a parked car about a hundred metres away. It was an S-Type Jaguar. The classiest one out of all the cars parked there.
At that point, a recollection tugged at Dave’s memory. Something about that particular car, that S-Type Jaguar… But then it passed. What with the cold and the residual alcohol in his system, the neurons in his head were moving too sluggishly to be able to do their job properly.
The couple got into the car. The doors slammed shut.
BANG.
The S-Type Jaguar exploded in a huge fireball.
Dave felt a wave of heat scorch his face.
He blinked in shock as pieces of twisted burning wreckage crashed down on the pavement around him. A lump of smoking flesh landed, plop, right in front of him. It was a human arm attached to a piece of torso. Still fastened to the wrist of the severed body part was the big pricey-looking watch he’d noticed the man wearing just moments earlier.
Dave looked on in horror, his ears ringing in the aftermath of the blast.
At least it wasn’t so cold any more. Quite the opposite.
2
Detective Constable Bailey Morgan unfurled the piece of paper that had just fallen out of the end of the Christmas cracker.
Both of her parents looked at her expectantly across the dinner table. The three of them were wearing paper party hats at her father’s insistence. They had finished the main course and were now taking a breather before dessert.
‘Well?’ said her mother, an expectant smile lighting up her small wrinkled face.
Bailey scanned the slip of paper with her ash-grey eyes. She sighed and dutifully read what it said. ‘What do lions sing at Christmas?’
Her parents both frowned as they tried to think of the answer.
‘I give up,’ said her father, scratching his thinning grey hair.
‘So do I,’ said her mother.
‘Jungle Bells.’
Her parents laughed. Bailey didn’t. She crumpled the piece of paper and dropped it onto the table.
It was Christmas Day. It also happened to be her birthday. She had just turned thirty.
Her mother put on her half-moon reading glasses and squinted down at her own cracker joke. Her eyes widened.
‘Ooh, you’ll like this one, Bailey. It’s right up your street.’
Somehow Bailey doubted that but she didn’t say anything.
Her mother took a deep breath. ‘What happened to the man who stole an advent calendar?’
Bailey paused for thought. As was her habit when she was thinking, she fiddled with the lock of hair that she wore loose down the left side of her face to cover the thin white scar that ran from the top of her cheek down to the bottom of her jaw. The scar had been inflicted upon her during the course of her job, the grim handiwork of a vicious perpetrator who still haunted her nightmares.
She curled the hair around her fingers and let it uncurl.
‘He got twenty-five days,’ she said.
Her mother looked a little crestfallen. ‘You’ve heard it before!’
Bailey shook her head.
Thirty. It had come so suddenly. Weren’t you supposed to do something special on your thirtieth? She hadn’t really had the chance to give it much thought as she’d been too busy working. Her last police operation had come to a close only recently and she was still getting over it; she’d been undercover in a women’s prison and had come perilously close to never making it out of there alive.
Now, here she was, thirty, single, at her parents’ suburban pebble-dashed house in Bromley, reading crummy cracker jokes. Not one to normally feel sorry for herself, she was finding it hard to shake the feeling of existential despondency that had settled upon her all of a sudden.
She realised she should probably try and make the effort to meet up with some friends. That’d put an end to the navel-gazing. But it had been a while since she’d done so. Immersed in undercover work, she’d let a lot of her friendships fall by the wayside. Although in truth there wasn’t much she could do about that; on her last case, posing as a prison inmate, inviting her friends to drop by for a visit at Her Majesty’s Pleasure just wouldn’t have been a viable option, not least because she’d been pretending to be someone completely different to who she actually was.
Still, a birthday was always a good excuse for a celebration with friends… but when your birthday fell on Christmas Day, friends tended to be with their own families, and these days most of her friends from school and university were married with kids, which made it all the more difficult to catch up. So, for the time being, it was just her and her parents…
And to that end, Christmas dinner had been much like all the previous ones that she could remember: the turkey had been too dry – her mother never got it quite right – but her dad’s stuffing had been excellent as usual; it was the only dish he knew how to make.
Although there were three of them sitting at the table, four places had actually been set. It had been the same every Christmas for the past twenty-four years or so, ever since Bailey’s older sister Jennifer had gone missing at the age of eight years old, abducted off the street without a trace. Her father insisted on laying a place for Jennifer, resolute in his belief that she was still out there somewhere alive, vainly convinced that his efforts to find her would one day bear fruit. Bailey’s mother had long ago lost the will to argue with him, and Bailey herself knew that raising any objection to his delusions would only result in a big row, and no one wanted that at Christmas. So no one said anything.