Read Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy) Online
Authors: David Mark
Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy)
Also by David Mark
Dark Winter
Original Skin
Sorrow Bound
Taking Pity
A Bad Death
Dead Pretty
David Mark
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Mulholland Books
An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
1
Copyright © David Mark 2016
The right of David Mark to be identified as the Author of the Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 978 1 444 79809 8
Trade Paperback ISBN 978 1 444 79810 4
eBook ISBN 978 1 444 79808 1
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
For Xavier – born on the day I wrote ‘The End’
‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.’
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
‘There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.’
Charles de Montesquieu
Contents
Prologue
August bank holiday, last year
She’s blonde, near enough. Hair the colour of an old wedding gown. Skin like stripped twigs. Wolfcub eyes behind misted glass.
Flushed pink, she is. Pink and white and pink and white, like a mosaic of seashells. Like a plate of posh biscuits. Like a porcelain doll.
Sticky arms and a sweaty neck, spilling out of a neat white dress: sausagemeat forced through a veil.
Twenty-something. A plump fly in a web of tangled trees and knotted weeds, swinging her legs, toddler-like, over the entrance to a warm, dark hole in the earth.
Leaves in her hair and ladybirds on her skin. Ladybirds everywhere, gobbling up the last of the summer aphids: something from a fairy tale until you look close and see the green slime on their sharp little teeth . . .
Hannah looks at the ladybirds crawling over her knees. She’s stopped being amazed by their number. The collective noun for a group of ladybirds is a
loveliness
. That’s what he told her and she had been so delighted with it, and with him, that she has not sought confirmation. Everybody else is referring to the colourful creatures as a plague. Hannah cannot imagine being cross about ladybirds. Cannot imagine anything more wonderful. She likes to imagine that they are tiny faeries, flitting and bustling and delighting in the late summer sun.
She shifts her weight on the hard ground. Watches the thick black shadow of the tree bisect her bare thigh, and apologises to the loveliness of ladybirds that takes off, pouting and petulant, as their world goes dark.
He’ll be here soon. Here to make it better. To make everything right.
Hannah looks at the sports bag at her feet. Wishes she had made the two-mile walk here in her trainers. She quite likes the new summer dress she bought especially for him and has been surprised at the simple pleasure of walking with her skin touching fresh air. But the new Doc Marten boots have rubbed her ankles raw. She should have worn socks, but he didn’t ask for socks. Hadn’t ever hinted at a fondness for them. And she wants to please. She wants to please him so badly that she sometimes feels like she is transforming into another person entirely. She has felt desire before, of course. She’s a young woman with the same wants and needs as anybody else. But she feels something for him that goes beyond the physical. She wants to be consumed by him. To be enveloped. She wants him to be her chrysalis; to bind and contain her as she disintegrates and reforms. Wants him to be the first thing she sees when she emerges and flaps her beautiful wings . . .
She wishes the ladder weren’t here. Wishes, too, that the shadows of the tall trees didn’t look so much like prison bars. She wants it to be pretty. To be perfect. Things are going to be better soon. Better for both of them.
The ladybirds land afresh on Hannah’s bare skin. She looks up and frowns again at the ladder. Half hidden among the trees, it leads up to a rectangular wooden construction surrounded by chicken wire. He told her it was a ‘hide’ – a place to conceal oneself to observe the animals. It doesn’t look very inviting. To Hannah it looks like the steps to the gallows and she does not want that thought to enter the man’s mind when he arrives. She wants him to feel nothing but freedom. To feel relief. And then to kiss her. God, how she wants that. They have talked their way through physical acts but he has never done more than push her hair behind her ear or tuck the label back in her sweatshirt. The time hasn’t been right. There have been too many obstacles. He can’t give himself to her when he belongs to so many others. She’s heard every excuse and wept at each of them, without ever really believing him.
But fate smiles on heroes. The gods intercede on behalf of those with goodness in their heart. That’s what she tells herself. It’s what he told her too, before she started to piss him off with her texts and letters and her hints and gentle threats. But how else can he see it? This is their chance. The opportunity he needs to get away. And she wants to hold his hand as he runs. She knows he’s cross at her. She feels bad about that. Wishes she hadn’t had to push quite so hard. But it will be worth it. She knows she can make him happy. Knows how their future will be.
The sound of a car engine from the nearby road causes her to stiffen where she sits. But the driver doesn’t even pause. He’s not here yet. Might be a little while. She doesn’t mind waiting. It’s nice here, among the trees. The little church where they first met is almost visible over the brow of the hill. She can hear the trickle of the tiny river. Can hear the birds among the nettles. Fancies she can even hear the badgers snoring in the sett beneath her feet. She likes to think of the animals asleep down there. Can picture them in her mind’s eye, snuggled up on crocheted blankets in front of their warm, open fire. Amends the mental picture, in deference to the warmth of the day. Lets out a nervous giggle at the thought of badgers in bikinis, lounging in deckchairs and sipping fancy drinks with long straws . . .
Hannah daydreams for a while. Feels the sweat trickle down the back of her thighs. Crosses and uncrosses her legs. She hopes he appreciates this. She’s done it all for him. She’s always been such a clean girl. Always brushed her teeth twice a day and showered in the morning. She’s shaved her armpits twice a week since adolescence. For him, for them, she has allowed herself to become some kind of cavewoman. She scratches at her armpits. Shudders at the sensation of curly hair. Sniffs her fingers and recoils. Onion skins and unwashed tights. She’d have been bullied for this, at school. Bullied at work, too. And at home. They love her, the bullies. Seem to look at her the way ladybirds look at aphids.
She turns her thoughts back to
him
. To what she’s done. It’s a strange way to win a man. But she would be the first to admit she does not have much experience of the opposite sex. Has had to do her reading.