Mark Sennen - TOUCH - A DI Charlotte Savage Novel

Avon An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Mark Sennen 2012

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

A catalogue record for 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 ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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: 9780007512096

Ebook Edition © January 2013 ISBN: 9780007512102

Version: 2018-10-25

For Sue and Michael

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Epilogue

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

When Harry was a child he lived at the top of the house. His little bedroom had been crammed under the eaves and had funny shaped walls, sloping ceilings and iron hooks in the beams to which you could tie things. Most of the year the temperature seemed glacial and when night fell he would go to bed fully-clothed and try to think himself warm. Then he would lie in the darkness listening to the noise of the water tank hidden behind one wall. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he was sure nobody would come, but as long as the room stayed dark he didn’t get afraid. The dark felt comforting. Safe. In the dark he became invisible. It was when the light came on he got scared.

Harry peered through the window into the gloom beyond the cracked glass. Nothing to see but black. Clouds hid the moon and stars and there were no streetlights, no cars or other signs of life. Not out here. Harry smiled to himself. He didn’t get scared. Not anymore. He turned from the window and gazed across at the girl. She slouched in the chair dressed in the white underwear he had bought for her. She didn’t say much, just sat unmoving, eyes wide. Her silence was understandable, after all they had been together for weeks and she didn’t have much left to say. Still, he could tell by her demeanour she wasn’t comfortable, that something wasn’t quite right. Harry tutted to himself and shook his head. This would never do. He went over to the girl and reached out and touched her skin. Cold. Ice cold. Poor girl, no wonder the smile on her face had gone. He bent down and fiddled with the fan heater, turning the knob up a couple of notches. The fan whirred in protest but the air seemed a little warmer. He moved the heater and angled the air flow upwards so the warmth reached the girl’s body. There, she looked almost happy.

Almost happy would do for him too, he thought. He didn’t think it was much to ask. Years back he’d seen a woman lawyer talking on TV. ‘There are human rights’, she said. Those rights meant you could get stuff you didn’t have. Stuff like happiness. It was the law. Written down. In books. You could go to court to get it. You could sue the council or the government and get damages. But now he knew there were easier ways.

Harry’s ways.

He moistened his lips and pushed his tongue into the corner of his cheek and chewed for a moment, letting his eyes wander over the girl’s body: pink toenails, delicate feet, shapely calves, not-too-thin thighs, rounded stomach, nice breasts, gorgeous long black hair … Nice. Very nice.

Her breasts were the best thing about her. Small and pert, the nipples pushing upwards through the white material of the bra. Towards God. As if thanking her creator for producing such a work of art. Harry considered the girl again. Overall she scored nine out of ten. Maybe nine point five. You would go a long way to find a better likeness.

Harry scratched the stubble on his chin. The nagging thought that had first come to him a few weeks ago returned. Things hadn’t worked out as they should have. Not with this one. She was like an apple that was ripe on the outside but rotten within. Full of worms and maggots, or perhaps hiding a wasp. Yes, a wasp. You would get stung if you bit into a piece of fruit with a wasp inside. He needed a girl who was clean and pure. Untouched.

A hint of a smile played on the girl’s face for a moment. Was she mocking him or just feeling a little happier now the room had warmed up? Really it didn’t matter. He could do whatever he wanted to her and she wouldn’t mind because she loved him. He supposed he had made the same mistake when he had been a kid. He had let his parents do as they wished because he loved them, but they hadn’t loved him. Ever.

Harry went back to the window and stared into the emptiness again. Nothing. For a minute or two his mood darkened, black, like the night. Thinking about the past did that because he had a whole bunch of memories he didn’t want to recall. They still kept coming back to haunt him though, like a bad smell that crept up unnoticed. One moment you got a slight whiff in your nostrils and the next you were gagging on puke.

Harry scolded himself. It was stupid to dwell on the past. Futile. He looked at the girl again. She might not be right but that didn’t mean they hadn’t had some good times together. He smiled. Rapture would have to wait until the next one. For now he would just have some fun. He licked his lips and began to remove his clothing.

Detective Inspector Charlotte Savage woke with a sense of loss and sadness. Numb. The way she always felt after the dream. The last nightmare had been months ago, but if anything that made the shock more acute. She rolled over to look at the bedside clock, groaned at the time, and then saw the message light on the phone blinking. She sighed as she sat up to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. She would play the message in a moment, but first she wanted to check on the children.

The morning light filtered into the house, the weak light of a stormy autumn day. Savage peered through the landing window into the garden where sheets of rain lashed down and saplings whipped back and forth in the wind. Beyond the garden the ground dropped to the sea where a mist of spray rose and fell with every wave that hit the shore. Farther away, out across Plymouth Sound, a couple of tankers and a navy supply vessel lay anchored behind the shelter of the mile-long breakwater that cut off the roadstead from the open sea. Huge rollers crashed over the breakwater rocks as the storm tried to batter the city into submission.