T.M.E. Walsh - Pretty Little Things - 2018’s most nail-biting serial killer thriller with an unbelievable twist

I hold his stare now.

‘We did that once.’ I watch his face fall, now less assured of his own words. ‘You remember how that turned out?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, but I also remember the reasons behind it.’

He sees the hurt on my face.

‘I know it wasn’t your fault,’ he says, now coming towards me. ‘Besides, this is different.’ He looks deep into my eyes. ‘It’s just a party. Give her that little bit of freedom.’

I risk a glance at the newspaper again. Iain sees and shoves it in the bin. He avoids my eyes as he comes over and kisses me on the cheek.

‘The worst didn’t happen to you, Charlotte.’ He pats my arm, then leaves me standing there alone.

The worst didn’t happen . . .

I could have died in that crash. I didn’t. I could have been left with life-changing injuries. I wasn’t. I could have left my daughter without her mother. I didn’t. I’m here and all I can do is try to carry on as usual.

Easier said than done.

How do you completely come back from being so close to death? How can you just act like nothing’s happened? Iain suggested six months ago that I might need counselling.

I declined.

I don’t need a therapist to tell me what I already know.

I could have died – would have done, had I not been dragged from the wreckage. It’s freak events like that that make you question your own mortality, and that of the ones you love.

Is it any wonder I obsess about our daughter’s safety when there’s someone out there hurting girls our daughter’s age? Is it any wonder I put all my energy into protecting her, when I’ve seen this kind of pain before? Iain knows what happened to my brother when I was small. He knows what I saw with my own mother, and yet . . .

Carry on as usual, he says . . .

Easier said than done.

CHAPTER 2

Detective Inspector Madeleine Wood’s Tyvek paper suit rustled with each tentative step she took towards the incident tent.

She’d been warned what to expect by officers who had already been on the scene for several hours, since the initial call had come through.

A group of teens had taken a haul of alcohol and drugs up to the wasteland in the middle of the night, planning on making their mark on the world. In their heads, they’d thought they were making a stand against society, or some such rubbish.

Stumbling across a makeshift shallow grave in the dark had scared them shitless, and reduced them to crying wrecks, begging for their mummies.

Twisted limbs, flesh riddled with insects, and a smell that would stay with you no matter how many times you washed would do that to anybody, even if these teens were usually as hard as nails.

Madeleine tucked a few strands of long auburn hair that had worked loose from her ponytail back inside the suit’s hood.

‘Guv,’ said DC Braithwaite as she approached.

Madeleine nodded. ‘Charis.’

DC Charis Brathwaite looked as solemn as ever. Devoid of much emotion, she resembled Madeleine’s own mother – strong and silent, with an air about her that always gave the impression of being permanently pissed off with something or somebody.

Madeleine stopped beside Charis at the entrance to the incident tent, watching her pale face carefully, but she wasn’t giving much away.

‘What’s your gut telling you?’ she said.

She looked grim and pulled her face mask back over her chin. ‘It’s got to be them. Has to be.’

Madeleine swallowed hard.

She knew it to be true also, but part of her had still silently prayed she was wrong; that she wouldn’t be giving the news to heartbroken parents, their world now devoid of any hope of finding their child alive.

She took a deep breath and went inside.

There were four bodies in the grave in front of her. Four bodies in different stages of decomposition. Four bodies that were partially clothed; some feet missing shoes, socks . . . simple things that would have made them look more human.

One thing was for certain, though.

The four bodies were definitely female.

The missing girls had been found.

A formal ID would follow, but Madeleine knew it was them. Their names had been whittled down to just their first names in her head. That was all she needed to know. Names and ages. That was enough to make her determined to see justice done.

Caroline – 17 .

Juliet – 16 .

Melissa – 15 .

Katie – 15 .

Despite being used to crime scenes by now, some occasionally very brutal in nature, she still felt stirrings inside her that made her want to turn around, walk out of the incident tent and just keep on going, walking across the wasteland and never looking back.

‘It’s going to take a while to formally ID them,’ Charis said, swallowing hard.

Madeleine squatted down close to the pit. Seeing the bodies in situ was a necessity but it was a hard scene to take in and digest.

Casting her dark-brown eyes over the remains, she caught sight of wisps of copper-coloured hair, just poking out from beneath another body.

Madeleine’s thoughts were immediately drawn to the photograph of Juliet Edwards her parents had given to the police when she first went missing. It had been taken at her sixteenth birthday party. In the photograph, Madeleine had noted that, around a face that was still full, puppy-fat yet to be fully shed, Juliet had beautiful green eyes, complemented by a shade of hair that reminded Madeleine of the colour of autumn leaves.

Madeleine looked deeper into the crude grave and saw the willowy limbs and ash-blonde hair that she knew had to belong to Caroline White.

The side of Caroline’s face was only just visible but Madeleine could see one gold-star stud in her earlobe.

Madeleine knew those earrings had been given to Caroline by her mother the Christmas just gone. The enormity of what she was facing was starting to really hit home now she had the bodies of the young girls here in front of her.

‘Guv,’ Charis said, coughing, trying to clear the lump in her throat as she thought of her own daughter safe back at home with her mother-in-law. ‘We have some DCs doing rounds of house-to-house and specialist officers with the teens who found the . . . pit.’ She avoided using the word ‘grave’. This wasn’t worthy of being considered that.

Madeleine nodded a response but her attention was drawn to the forensic pathologist hovering in the corner of her peripheral vision.

Dennis Roach pulled his face mask down under his chin, although he was clearly reluctant to, given the scene around them.

‘It’s going to take time, as you might expect,’ he said, gesturing to the bodies. ‘There’s a lot of insect activity and there are various stages of decomposition . . . not to mention there’s been some dismemberment, likely from animal activity.’ He looked like he had a nasty taste in his mouth and Madeleine could more than relate.

This was a mess.

‘Understood,’ she said. ‘Too early to say, I suppose, but any indication on cause of death?’

Roach grimaced. ‘As you say, very hard to even gauge at this point but I can see signs of trauma to one of the victim’s necks, just here,’ he said, gesturing towards the nearest body.

Madeleine looked at the body lying on top of the rest, eyes open, face pointing skyward.

Katie Allen.

Madeleine knew it had to be her. She’d not long since pinned the girl’s photograph to the board in the incident room back at the station, maybe two weeks ago at most.

‘Her throat has been cut,’ Roach said.

Madeleine visibly jolted as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. Her eyes were drawn to a savage cut right across the girl’s neck, almost from ear to ear.

It looked deep, although it was hard to tell under the dried blood and grime.