HOLD HANDS IN THE DARK

  A DCI DANI BEVAN NOVEL

  #7

  By

  KATHERINE

  PATHAK

  ≈

  THE GARANSAY PRESS

  © Katherine Pathak 2016, All Rights Reserved.

  Books by Katherine Pathak

  The Imogen and Hugh Croft Mysteries:

  Aoife’s Chariot

  The Only Survivor

  Lawful Death

  The Woman Who Vanished

  Memorial for the Dead

  (Introducing DCI Dani Bevan)

  The Ghost of Marchmont Hall

  Short Stories:

  Full Beam

  Mystery at Christmas Cottage

  DCI Dani Bevan novels:

  Against A Dark Sky

  On A Dark Sea

  A Dark Shadow Falls

  Dark As Night

  The Dark Fear

  Girls Of The Dark

  Hold Hands in the Dark

  The Garansay Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems - without the prior permission in writing of the author and publishers.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  © Katherine Pathak, 2016

  #HoldHandsintheDark

  Edited by: The Currie Revisionists, 2016

  ©Cover photograph Pixabay Images

  PROLOGUE

  Crosbie Farm, West Kilbride, Christmas 1974

  The tree was the best thing about the Faulkner family’s Christmases. Magnus Faulkner always selected one of the most robust wee pines from the forest that lay on the fringes of their land.

  With the tree freshly chopped and balanced in a bucket full of soil in the front room, Dale Faulkner carefully draped the string of multi-coloured lights across its prickly branches. The boy stood back and surveyed his handiwork.

  ‘That’s perfect, son,’ his grandmother commented from the chair by the electric bar fire.

  ‘I’m just gonna add a bit of tinsel,’ Dale replied, fishing with his hand in the plastic bag of decorations his Ma had brought down from the attic that afternoon.

  Vicki looked up from her Bunty annual, casting a critical eye over her little brother’s display. ‘Hmm, you’d better switch them on first. If one of the lights has blown you’ll have to take it all off and start again.’

  Dale nodded. His sister was right. He leant down behind the tree, feeling its pines prickling his face and the scent of the needles filling his nose as he fumbled to get the plug into its socket.

  For a split second, the pretty little tree was lit up by a dozen multi-coloured fairy lights. Granny Lomas even had time to let out a little sigh of approval. Then they were plunged into darkness.

  Dale was still crouched behind the tree. He nearly toppled the whole thing over with the shock of the sudden absence of light.

  ‘Are you still there?’ He cried out in alarm.

  Vicki snorted an unpleasant laugh. ‘Of course we are, squirt. Where did you think we’d gone? Beamed up by the Starship Enterprise?’

  ‘Maybe the fuse got blown,’ Granny muttered. ‘Those cheap lights are a menace.’

  ‘I think it’s just another power cut,’ Vicki suggested boredly. ‘Dale, go and fetch the candles from the kitchen, will you.’

  ‘But I canae see a thing!’ The boy’s voice was shrill. The panic was washing over him in waves.

  ‘There’s no need to be a’feared, laddie,’ his Granny soothed. ‘We’re surely used to this by now. We’ve been more without power than with it these past few months.’

  ‘I know,’ Dale sniffled. ‘But Ma’s not here. She knows how to light all the lamps and the fire and stuff. Dad doesn’t bother coming back into the farmhouse when there’s a power cut. He’s got his torches to use out in the sheds.’

  ‘Look,’ Granny exclaimed. ‘There’s some moonlight coming in through the window. Your Ma will only be another hour or so.’ She made her tone as gentle as possible. ‘Come and gather around my chair. We’ll do what we used to when the two of you were bairns.’

  Dale extricated himself from behind the tree and crawled along the uneven wooden floor to sit beside her. To his surprise, Vicki slid off the sofa to do just the same.

  ‘Now,’ Granny said quietly. ‘We shall hold hands in the dark. Then we will know we aren’t on our own.’

  ‘And will you tell us a story too?’ Dale felt his worries melting away. He used to love this game as a bairn.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied.

  While listening to Granny Lomas’s tale about bombing raids and underground shelters, Dale concentrated on the sensation of her warm, bony hand in his. He could feel the roughness of her skin and the veins standing up very slightly on its surface. Vicki’s hand was softer, her skin plump and springy.

  Dale imagined this must be what it was like for blind people, who had to rely on their remaining senses to explore the world around them.

  As if to test this theory, Dale began to hear a faint sound, just discernible above the lyrical rhythm of his Granny’s clear voice. The sound was getting louder. It was coming from somewhere outside. Soon, he had tuned out the story altogether and was simply concentrating on those distant, strange noises.

  There was something about the sounds that he recognised. Every atom of his being was straining to hear what was going on.

  Then the shot came. It was so loud that the three of them automatically broke the circle and put their hands up to their ears to protect them. In that instant, Dale thought he must have been right – that the all-enveloping darkness had made their hearing supersensitive, so that the sudden sound assailed them like a physical blow.

  Granny struggled to her feet. ‘What in heaven’s name was that?’

  No one answered. Vicki had thrown her arms around her wee brother’s shoulders and was gripping him tightly, as much for her own comfort as his. Granny said no more and appeared to be frozen to the spot.

  A complete silence followed the crack of the gunshot and Granny’s unanswered question. It was broken only by the sound of Dale’s muffled but uncontrollable sobs.

  Chapter 1

  Richmond, Virginia, USA. Present day.

  Sergeant Sam Sharpe tapped the final sentence into his report and fired it off to his superior officer. The Virginia PD detective had just turned fifty. He’d given over thirty years of service to the department. He could afford to take a comfortable retirement package at any time he liked. It was just a question of what he wanted to do next with his life.

  Sam swept a hand through his thick hair, which possessed only a sprinkling of grey. He was heavily built and had a tendency to store fat. In recent months, Sharpe had been weight training, like he’d done in his youth, before Janie and the boys came along. Now his arms and torso were bulked up with muscle rather than excess flesh.

  The sergeant was just packing up his bag to return to his city centre apartment for the evening when Detective Cassie Sanchez pushed through the doors and entered his floor. Sanchez was a lean woman in her late thirties, serious-minded and dedicated to the job.

  ‘How can I help you, Sanchez?’ Sam eyed her carefully. He could tell there was something wrong. The woman’s dark brown eyes were darting from desk to desk, as if she were searching for somebody. ‘Dale isn’t here. He’s on a callout.’

  Sam knew that Sanchez and one of his best detectives had been an item for about a year now. Detective Dale Faulkner had been spilt from his wife for a long while and Sam was pleased he’d got together with such a level-headed woman like Cassie. He also happened to be convinced that the only relationship that could really work for cops was one with another cop.

  The woman’s attractive face began to crumple. ‘I know, sir. We’ve been monitoring all the radio communications taking place on the Southside of the city down in Narcotics this evening. We intercepted somethin’ –,’ her voice cracked.

  Sam got to his feet. ‘What’s happened Detective?’

  Tears had escaped onto her cheeks. ‘It’s Dale. He and Gabe answered a domestic callout – the neighbours had heard screams, an argument-,’

  ‘Yeah, I was here when they got the call.’ Sam felt his stomach do a flip.

  ‘Dale went into the house alone. I heard him tell Gabe to wait out in the car.’

  ‘That’s not proper procedure,’ Sam mumbled, starting to get a really bad feeling about this.

  ‘Dale was gone a good few minutes - ten maybe, fifteen at the most. Then Gabe clearly started to get worried about his partner ‘cause he tried to radio Dale, but there was no answer.’ Cassie put her hands up to cover her face. ‘He’s dead, Sergeant Sharpe! Dale’s dead!’

  Sam took a couple of steps forward and enveloped the distraught woman in his strong arms.

  *

  The name of this suburb had always reminded Sam of his ex-girlfriend, Dani. Midlothian lay to the west of Richmond, just south of the James River. The place had been named after its Scottish counterpart by
the brothers who founded it as a coal-mining community 300 years earlier.

  The mining industry was now long-gone from the area. In its place were pleasant suburban villas, highways and schools. It also happened to be where the Faulkner household was situated.

  Sam pulled up outside a neat, detached house with gabled windows. He’d been there many times for dinner and barbecues when Dale and Toni had still been together. Only the Faulkners’ youngest child, Grace, still lived at home with her Mom. The other two had finished college and were living in their own places.

  There was an SUV parked up in the driveway. Sam took a deep breath before he rang the bell.

  Toni pulled open the door very slowly. She was wearing a halter-neck top with a long, flowing skirt. Sam assumed she’d been out in the garden. Her eyes widened when she saw who was standing on her doorstep. ‘You’d better come inside,’ she said weakly.

  Sam followed her into the kitchen. The back door was open onto the sweeping porch. He could make out a swing chair, positioned in the morning sunshine, with a paperback novel lying open on one of its cushions.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you at home, Toni. Would you mind taking a seat?’

  The woman lowered herself slowly onto one of the kitchen chairs. Sam sat down opposite her.

  ‘I can’t tell you for how many years I dreaded this visit, Sam.’ Toni’s voice was distant and hesitant. ‘But since Dale and I split, I honestly never thought about it again. I reckoned I didn’t have to any longer, that I was free of the anguish.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Toni.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘There’s going to be an internal inquiry into the incident. I can only tell you so much.’

  Toni raised her gaze, looking quizzical. ‘How come?’

  Sam sighed heavily. ‘A call was made to the emergency desk late yesterday afternoon. There’d been reports of an attack on a woman inside of a house in a neighbourhood on the Southside of the city. Dale volunteered to go out there and take a look. Gabe went with him.’

  ‘Detectives always go out in twos, don’t they? You make it sound like Gabe’s presence was an afterthought.’

  Sam noted how perceptive Toni was. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I was there when Dale responded to the report. It was almost like if Gabe hadn’t automatically got up to follow, Dale would have gone out alone.’

  Toni shook her head. ‘Well, that doesn’t make much sense.’ She gulped. ‘What did they find there?’

  ‘The address they’d been given was in a pretty shabby block. The house itself had some boarded up windows. There was no sign of the neighbours who’d called the disturbance in. Usually, one will come out onto the sidewalk when the cops show up. But there was nothin’.’

  ‘They might have been scared.’ Toni wanted to keep talking, to delay the inevitable.

  ‘Sure, it’s a possibility. Dale told Gabe to wait in the car. He patted his holster and then proceeded up to the front door.’

  ‘Hang on – so Dale went in there alone?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a breach of protocol. Gabe’s facing a disciplinary charge. That’s why an inquiry has been set up.’

  ‘But if Dale told Gabe to stay put?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘It’s early days, Toni. Gabe’s still mightily shaken up. He sat in the car for about ten minutes, maybe twenty. He said the place was as quiet as the grave. He tried to radio Dale a couple of times and got no response. That’s when he went in.’

  Toni breathed back a sob.

  ‘The door wasn’t locked and the place was in darkness. It didn’t look like it had been lived in for years. Gabe kept calling out for Dale and there was no response. He was having trouble seeing where he was going until he spotted a light at the end of the corridor. He followed it to the kitchen, where a couple of candles had been lit inside old wine bottles. A back door out into a paved yard was swinging open, causing the flames to flicker violently. Then Gabe saw Dale. He was seated at the table. His body slumped against the back of the chair. Dale had a single bullet wound to the forehead. For what it’s worth Toni, it would have been real quick. I don’t believe he suffered. That’s somethin’ to tell the kids, sweetheart.’

  Chapter 2

  Pitt Street Police Headquarters, Glasgow.

  Despite having worked at the Police Scotland HQ for over a decade, DCI Bevan had never been into this particular conference room before. It was located deep within the upper floors of the building, where only the most senior of the management honchos dwelt.

  DCS Ronnie Douglas was chairing the meeting. He was a tall, imposing man in his early fifties with a head of thick, dark hair. His face was surprisingly unlined for a senior policeman but his countenance was as changeable as a steel girder. You never quite knew what was going through his head.

  ‘With the sudden departure of Deputy Chief Constable Ross, the AC would like me to take on some additional responsibilities - just until his replacement can be found.’

  Dani Bevan wondered if that replacement would be Douglas himself. If so, it would be one of the most meteoric career progressions she’d witnessed during her time on the force. The DCI remained silent. She knew that it was her operation into the murders of four young women in the 1970s that had led to the removal of DCC Ross. Dani had no desire to rock the boat any further.

  ‘The AC has asked me to sweep a broom through the upper corridors of Pitt Street,’ Douglas continued. ‘Absolutely no one is to be above suspicion. I’m assuming it goes without saying that anything discussed in this room goes no further.’ He fixed a menacing glare upon each person present. ‘Good. It transpires that on a number of occasions, DCC Ross deliberately directed investigations away from his golfing pal, Gregory Suter – a man now awaiting trial for a series of sickening murders.’

  ‘Did Ross know what Suter was up to?’ Dani couldn’t help but ask, her tone tinged with shock and incredulity.

  Douglas shook his head slowly. ‘We don’t believe so. Otherwise, he’d be in the dock alongside Suter. It appears that Gregory worked very hard to develop close relationships with men in important positions. He used this influence to evade capture for so many years. It won’t only be the erstwhile DCC who is tied up in this. There will be others. It’s our job to flush out the rest.’ The DCS scanned the faces before him once again, this time his expression was softer. ‘Those of you seated around this table represent the only people within the walls of the Pitt Street station that I wholeheartedly trust, beyond the Assistant CC and the Chief Constable himself. Not least because we’ve had you all thoroughly vetted.’ Just the tiniest hint of a wry smile played upon his thin lips.

  ‘Do you want us to provide you with information, sir?’ A DCI from the vice squad asked this question.

  Douglas nodded. ‘Trust nobody in your team. Believe me, Suter was handing out bribes like they were penny sweeties for the last four decades. His control runs deep within this force. Anything unusual needs to be reported back to me - immediately.’

  Dani shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘But this kind of witch-hunt is surely going to generate bad feeling within the ranks, Guv. Our teams operate on mutual support and trust.’

  Douglas’s forehead creased. ‘The term witch-hunt, suggests that our suspicions are unfounded. I only wish that they were, DCI Bevan. The First Minister herself is launching an inquiry into the Suter case. A forty-year old miscarriage of justice is enough to bring down governments. We need to have cleared our division of dirty officers by the time these investigators start work, because if you think I’m an unfeeling bastard, wait till you meet that lot.’