Mark Sennen: Tell Tale: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

AVON

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Copyright © Mark Sennen 2015

Cover image © Neil Robinson/Getty Images

Cover Design © Andrew Smith www.asmithcompany.co.uk

Mark Sennen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007587865

Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780007587872

Version: 2016-02-23

For Gitte … again!

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

The DI Charlotte Savage Series

About the Publisher

Stars. Pinpricks of light vaulted across the sky. Hundreds of them, thousands, more than he can count. Perhaps, he thinks, there are even as many stars in the sky as there are girls in the city. He licks his lips, the notion exciting him. That’s one hell of a lot of stars. A hell of a lot of girls.

You know what you do with stars, Chubber? Make a wish.

‘Oh yes, a wish!’ Chubber whispers to himself as he swings his eyes earthward, down from the heavens. ‘I wish, I wish … I wish I could find her!’

In front of him, the moor is a heaving landscape of shadows rolling towards the distant orange glow of civilisation. All around, tors rise from the scrub and heather, grey granite forms that watch and wait. Chubber is waiting too, crouched behind a prickly clump of gorse, well wrapped in a homemade sheepskin cloak. The night is cold and frosty. A lacework pattern of ice glitters amongst the bog plants. Chubber’s eyes follow the silver trail as frozen water winds up towards a spring. She’s up there. Hiding. If Chubber hadn’t slipped over he’d have caught her by now.

Silly Chubber!

Yes. Silly. She’d been safely locked away but he’d wanted to give her a chance. The game was more exciting when he gave them a chance.

Exciting, yes! The thrill of the chase. You love it.

Chubber scans the hillside hoping his wish will come true, but there’s nothing moving, nothing living out here. Not at this time of year.

December, Chubber. Nearly Christmas.

He should have waited for the big day, he thinks. Now he’ll have nothing to look forward to but a ready meal from the microwave and the chocolate orange he’s been saving. If only she would … there! His heart leaps as he spots her eyes sparkling green in a shaft of moonlight. He jumps up and starts to run. She runs too, but now Chubber’s grinning, he’s getting closer. Gaining. Soon he’ll catch up with her.

‘There, there,’ Chubber shouts out. ‘No need to run from Chubber, my little beauty. Chubber’ll be nice and gentle. Promise. Just a bit of gliding and sliding and then … and then …’

She lets out a little cry, the noise disappearing into the dark of the night, the moor sucking the sound down into the boggy ground, where centuries of secrets lie hidden in the peaty soil. Chubber stumbles after her, but then pauses. There she is, standing on a ridge in the distance, for a moment silhouetted against the starry sky. She’s found harder ground and now she darts away, across the moor and into the night; disappearing behind a tor, the hunks of granite sheer black against the sprinkling of stars.

Bugger.

Chubber stands and pants. Hard work, chasing. Bloody hard work. Especially when you don’t catch them. Air wheezes in and out of his lungs. A hand moves down to loosen the tie on his baggies. Slips inside. Touches himself and then scratches his bollocks.

Double bugger, he thinks. Waste of an evening. She’s well and truly gone. Disappeared behind that … Chubber feels a breeze glide across his exposed tummy. He shivers. Realises he’s chased his prey far over the moor.

Too far, Chubber. Much too far.

Yes, because he knows this place. The tor. What lies beyond.

Chubber moves slowly now, climbing to the ridge so he can see down into the valley beyond. A group of rocks stands in a circle, the hunks of granite clustering like sentinels, guarding a large, flat boulder at the centre. This place is bad, cursed, he thinks. An ancient place of witches and ghouls, spirits and will-o’-the-wisps. In the daytime you might sit and eat a picnic, but at night …

Ch … Ch … Chubber!

Chubber looks again. The rocks are moving, dancing, one with a towering headpiece of antlers.

Not rocks, Chubber – people!

Six standing stones and six people dancing in and out, weaving some sort of pattern. A soft wind carries a plaintive melody across the ground, a woman’s voice, as sweet and clear as the cold night air. Then other voices join in, a low hum providing a background drone. Chubber tries to understand the song, but the words mean nothing, the language foreign to him, alien.

He stares down and his lip quivers. He moves to the tor and slides behind a large boulder. His head peeks round as the six figures begin to move faster and faster, back and forth between the stones. The tall figure with the antlers starts to sing a different chant, the figures whirling until there almost seems to be more than six. As if the very stones have somehow come alive and are joining in.

Chubber, run!

But he can’t, he’s frozen to the spot, mesmerised. Seconds pass, minutes, hours maybe. He doesn’t know. The figures race round and round until their chants conflate to a single drone. Chubber blinks. Something has happened. The six figures have rushed away from the circle. They are pulling something from behind a stand of gorse. It’s a person. A man. He’s limp, not resisting. Now they shove him down next to the flat rock and push him into a shallow trench alongside it. The six figures position themselves around the huge slab and slowly push the boulder over the hole in the ground. The scraping echoes into the night and the rock moves the final few inches and seals the chamber.