Taunting the Dead (2 page)

‘It’s the best part of the job, though, isn’t it, Sarge?’ said Sam.

‘What, eating curry on a Friday evening?’ Allie grinned. ‘It was on the DI, this one, by the way.’

‘Ooh, nasty Nick come good for a change,’ Matt sniggered. Everyone ignored him, mainly because Detective Inspector Nick Carter was a fair boss. He just didn’t see eye to eye with Matt over some of the old-school tactics that he continued to police with.

‘There is something so satisfying about tying up a murder case, especially after such a brutal attack,’ Sam continued. Then she blushed. ‘Sorry, Sarge. I didn’t mean –’

Allie waved the comment aside. She knew perfectly well that it wasn’t aimed at her. And Sam was right. This work did have the odd moments of job satisfaction, as she had mentioned, but there was still the other ninety-eight per cent of crap to get through to find it. Allie was going to say that when Matt piped in.

‘I’ll second that.’ He gave Allie a quick smile before raising a piece of bread in salute and dipping it into his curry. ‘Especially after what that bastard Maddison put her through. I can’t believe anyone could do that to another person. It’s barbaric.’

‘Sick,’ Perry offered between mouthfuls.

Allie shrugged on her coat, loosening her long, dark hair from underneath the collar.

‘You not having anything, Sarge?’ Sam asked.

‘Nope.’ Allie picked up a brown paper bag. ‘Taking it away, as they say.’ Which really meant that she was going to try and sweeten up Mark with food when she got home. He’d be livid that it was so late again.

She stepped into the cold night, her breath bouncing out in front of her as she rushed towards her car. Thirty minutes later, she pulled into her driveway with a sigh of relief.

Home for the Shentons was a pre-war detached house that she and Mark had lovingly renovated. The former owner, a recluse for twenty-odd years, so the neighbours said, had died after spending hardly a penny on it. They’d had to rip out and replace everything. Electrics, windows, doors, flooring and central heating added. A downstairs bathroom, unhealthily found off the kitchen, had been moved upstairs into one of the four bedrooms. The kitchen had been extended and French doors fitted to add light as well as overlook a pleasant but small back garden. Over twelve years they’d created home sweet home, somewhere they could both chill out. But Allie had never quite learned how to switch off.

When she went through to the living room, she found Mark sprawled on the settee. He glanced at her as she walked over before his eyes settled back on the television.

‘I have food,’ she offered as her way of apologising for being so late. She bent over to kiss him but he moved his head to the side.

‘Food!’ she repeated, holding up the bag.

‘Great.’ Still he wouldn’t look at her so she went through to the kitchen and dished the curry and rice out. She rejoined him moments later and they ate in silence as she caught up with the late night news. There had been two other murders in the country over the past week. One of them, the manslaughter of a German tourist in Kent, had been solved. The other in North London, a young lad known to have been stabbed by a rival gang member yet to be pointed out, remained an ongoing enquiry. As she heard where they were up to with it all, she wondered if her force would get a mention. But this was national news. The charging of Andrew Maddison would probably be a short snippet on Central News tomorrow.

Mark began to channel hop. ‘Why so late?’ He spoke without looking her way. ‘Did you call in to see Karen?’

‘No, I was catching up with my paperwork.’

‘But you always call in to see Karen after solving a murder.’

‘It was too late when I finished.’ She nodded her head towards the television on the channel that he’d stopped at. Desperate to change the way the conversation was bound to be going, she continued, ‘This looks like it will be good.’

The television went blank as Mark flicked it off. ‘Paperwork is more important than coming home?’

‘Of course not. You know –’

‘We’ve been crossing like ships on the landing all this week.’

‘That’s a little dramatic. What time did you get in tonight, hmm?’

‘That’s beside the point.’

‘No, it isn’t. You got in, what, around eight? So in actual fact, you’ve been alone tonight for just over two hours.’

‘I had to eat alone.’

‘Really.’ Derision dripped from the comment. ‘No one to eat with on expenses tonight?’

Mark stood up quickly, his lean frame towering over her; his stare would have been unnerving if she hadn’t known him so well. After a moment, he chose to say nothing. The slam of the door as he left the room made her jump. Annoyed at his behaviour, she followed him through to the kitchen.

‘It’s not an excuse,’ Allie said truthfully. ‘In case it escaped your notice, a woman was murdered on Ryder’s – Georgia Road. We’ve spent two long days proving that it was a domestic. We finally charged her fella with it this afternoon.’

Mark clapped in a sarcastic manner. ‘Congratulations, Sergeant.’

‘Look, we’ve got some bastard locked up for murder. You know how important that is to me after –’

‘You can’t solve every case, Allie. Just because –’

‘After he’d beaten her to a pulp, he stabbed her in the stomach. Then he left her outside in the rain to die.’

Mark had the decency to look sheepish. Allie relaxed as she watched the fight in him evaporate. Despite the fact that he was nearly forty, with grey specks prominent in his dark hair and laughter lines crinkling around his brown eyes, he still had a cheeky boy image that made him look exceedingly childish when he sulked. God, he was handsome. She walked towards him.

‘Doesn’t it please you that we caught him?’ she asked.

‘You think I don’t care when I hear about your victims?’ Mark folded his arms. ‘Well, I do. I’m sorry that some sick fuck beat his wife and then stabbed her but it doesn’t stop me from missing
my
wife. It doesn’t stop me from spending time alone when I should be with –’

Allie silenced him with a finger on his lips. She gazed into his eyes, fiery with rage. ‘You make me so horny when you’re angry.’

‘That’s not funny.’ Mark pushed her hand away half-heartedly. She replaced it with her lips, moulding her body against his as the kiss turned from resistance to want.

‘You never used to hate my job,’ Allie told him when they caught their breath. Her hands reached down to undo the buckle on his belt. ‘You used to love the uniform then, especially when it was teamed with pink furry handcuffs and I played about with your truncheon.’ She slipped her hand inside his jeans.

‘That’s not fair,’ he groaned.

‘It’s what I need.’ She ran the tip of her tongue across his top lip. ‘I run a tight ship at work and I demand the same respect at home. And if you can’t follow orders,’ she squeezed down hard enough to be pleasurable, ‘then I’ll have to take down your particulars.’

As Allie managed to switch off for a few precious moments of down time, in Stoke-on-Trent another murder was being planned.

CHAPTER TWO

The next morning Steph Ryder opened one eye, squinted at the daylight and pulled an arm from beneath the thick winter duvet. That was one hell of a mad Friday night session. She tried to remember where she’d ended up and, more to the point, whom she had ended up with, but the visions wouldn’t surface. Her eyes fell upon the empty whiskey bottle beside the bed. God, she’d give anything now to feel the warm trickle of heat as it travelled down her throat.

She could hear faint music – rap, R&B – which meant that her daughter, Kirstie, was at home. She turned onto her back, hoping for sleep to take her again.

‘Wow, don’t you look grand first thing in the morning,’ a grainy voice spoke out.

Steph’s eyes darted to her right as her mind caught up with the logistics. She sat up quickly, pulling the covers close around her naked chest.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she snapped. ‘Terry will kill you if he finds out.’

‘But he won’t find out, will he? Not from me, anyway.’ Phil Kennedy grinned. ‘I’m assuming you want me to leave pretty sharpish, though?’

Steph groaned and flopped back down. Oh God, what had she done? She had sworn she’d never get too involved and, so far, in all the time she’d been screwing Phil, she’d done just that. Thoughts rushed around her head, fighting with each other to make sense of the last few hours. She remembered being in The Potter’s Wheel last night with Tracy Smithson for the monthly pub quiz. She remembered joining in with two other regulars but still they hadn’t won, hadn’t even come near to winning. But then… nothing.

‘What time is it?’

‘Just gone nine thirty.’

Steph snuggled back down in the covers.

‘Need a shower,’ Phil said, as he made his way to the bathroom.

‘Make it quick.’ Steph sighed. Maybe this would turn out okay if she could get rid of him pretty sharpish. But wait – Kirstie! She darted across the room, her feet slapping on the parquet flooring in her speed. Across the galleried landing, she barged into her daughter’s bedroom, ignoring kicked-off shoes and clothes strewn over the bed, make-up covering a large dressing area in the middle of a bank of wardrobes.

‘Kirstie?’ Steph pushed on the half-open door to the ensuite bathroom. But it was empty, save for a wet towel thrown on the floor for Jeanie, their cleaner, to pick up.

She tiptoed over to the window, feeling the tension leaving her shoulders. Except for her car, the driveway was empty. It looked like Kirstie had gone out without waking her – something she did quite often when she knew her mother had been out the night before. So with a bit of luck, maybe Kirstie hadn’t seen Phil after all. And, as she spotted his car parked further down the cul-de-sac, she was more than thankful that he’d had the sense not to park too close.

‘No one’s home,’ Steph remarked when she went back into the bedroom. Phil stood naked, towelling dry his hair. She felt the familiar feelings of longing as her eyes flicked downwards. ‘Funny. I thought I heard music.’

‘You did. I switched on the radio to catch the news.’ Phil threw down the towel and beckoned her over.

‘Why did you come here last night?’ Steph needed to know. ‘You could have ruined everything.

‘I wanted to fuck you in his bed.’

‘Slut!’

‘You’ve got to admit it’s a real turn-on. Look.’ Steph stifled a grin as Phil’s flaccid penis began to unfurl and stand to attention. He curled her slender fingers around it. ‘I reckon now that I’m here we should make the most of it.’

‘You have no fucking idea how much grief I’ll get if he finds out about this, have you?’ She shook her head.

Phil moved his hand over hers, urging her to move with him. She stared at him, watching his pupils dilate, hating herself for feeding off the danger of him being there. Loving herself for being able to have this man as well. Phil Kennedy carried off the mean and moodiness of a bad boy to perfection. His hair was fairly short, dark and curling slightly at the neckline, with the odd hint of grey here and there. He had a faint scar down the side of his face towards his ear, a sign of a deal gone wrong when he was learning his trade, and a chipped front tooth after someone had lashed out at him with a pool cue. His physique for a man in his early forties was remarkable. Steph knew she’d never tire of running a hand over his chest and rippled torso. Yet even though she loved him in her own way, he was still only a plaything to her. Sometimes she wished he would understand that.

Phil’s dark eyes bore into hers. It was as if he sensed he could search out her soul. As he continued to move her hand up and down, he won. With his other hand, he pulled her close and onto the bed.

‘This bed?’ she asked as she ran a hand through his damp hair.

‘This bed,’ he repeated.

‘Go fuck yourself, Kennedy.’ Steph’s tone was more defiant than she’d intended.

‘You already have.’

In one fluid movement, Phil straddled her. She tried to wriggle from beneath him but he grabbed a wrist in each hand, forcing them up either side of her head. ‘And you’re going to fuck me again.’

‘No, I’m not. You need to go!’ She bucked her thighs underneath him but he stayed strong. She liked a fight. He knew she liked it rough. It was nothing more than role play.

Taking a breather as he moved down to her breasts, Steph threw her head back, laughing as she did. Fuck Terry Ryder, she thought. Phil was right. It was such a turn-on doing it here, on their bed.

Kirstie Ryder hadn’t got up early to go out that morning as her mother had surmised. She hadn’t actually got home at all from the night before. Instead, she had stayed over at her boyfriend’s house. Luckily for her, she knew her dad wouldn’t be back from Derby and her mother would be too hung-over to realise – or to care, even. But she needed to get a move on if she was going to get away with it.

‘Fuck, my head’s killing me!’ She yelped as she lifted it up from the pillow. She nudged the life form in the bed next to her. ‘What did you do to me, you bastard?’

Lee Kennedy turned towards her, a sly grin on his face. His dark hair was tousled, stubble on his chin making him look even sexier than Kirstie could have imagined.

‘I didn’t hear you complaining last night,’ he said.

‘From the state of the frigging brass band drumming away in my head, I bet I was in no fit state to say – or do – anything. What time is it?’

Lee looked at his watch. ‘Ten past ten.’

‘Fuck!’ Kirstie shot up and then sat on the edge of the bed again as the room began to spin. ‘I have to go. Now.’

‘Don’t fret, woman. It’s only one night.’

Kirstie stood up, grabbed her T-shirt and shrugged it on. Reaching the bedroom door, she held on for dear life before turning back to Lee. ‘I feel like shit and it’s all your fucking fault. Why did you insist on that last line of coke? Why didn’t you just take me home?’

‘I thought you’d be better sleeping it off here rather than getting in trouble again.’

‘He’ll still do his frigging nut if he knows,’ Kirstie shouted through from the bathroom as she sat on the loo.