The Mentor: The Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy, #1

By Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

What if someone you love is a serial killer?

 

DCI Eric Shaw, leading a forensic team at Scotland Yard, together with DI Miriam Leroux from a Murder Investigation Team, is investigating the death of a known offender. Killed by two gunshots: one to his neck, execution style, but preceded by another to his groin, implying a more personal motive.
Shaw's attention at work is often distracted by a young forensic investigator, Adele Pennington, who is a beautiful woman over two decades his junior. However, his attraction to her is unreciprocated.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the London police, an anonymous blog describes the details of a very similar crime. The author of the blog signs herself as Mina, like one of the victims in a case Shaw investigated many years ago.

 

Twenty years ago Eric saved her.
Who will save him now?

 

Meet DCI Eric Shaw . . . and his pupil.

 

This book is written in British English.

A different translation of this work was previously published by Amazon Publishing (2015).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anakina
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215986950

Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli is an Italian science fiction and thriller author. She has lived in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) since 1993, earning a degree in biology and working as a writer, scientific and literary translator, and freelance web copywriter. In the past she also worked as researcher, tutor and professor’s assistant in the field of ecology at the University of Cagliari. In 2012-2013 she wrote and published a hard science fiction series set on Mars and titled Deserto rosso. The whole series was also published as omnibus and hit No. 1 on the Italian Kindle Store in 2014. Deserto rosso was published in English, with the title Red Desert, between 2014 and 2015. She also authored three crime thrillers in the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy (2014-2017), an action thriller titled Kindred Intentions (Affinità d’intenti, 2015), five more science fiction novels – L’isola di Gaia (2014), Per caso (2015), Ophir. Codice vivente (2016), Sirius. In caduta libera (2018), and Nave stellare Aurora (2020) – and a non-fiction book titled Self-publishing lab. Il mestiere dell’autoeditore (2020). Her crime thriller The Mentor was first published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2015 and became an international bestseller hitting No. 1 on the Kindle Store in USA, UK, and Australia. A new edition was published in 2022. The other two books in the trilogy, Syndrome and Beyond the Limit, are expected in 2023. She’s also a member of the International Thriller Writers organization. She’s often a guest both in Italy and abroad during book fairs, including Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino and Frankfurter Buchmesse, local publishing events as well as university conferences. She has also taught a class on self-publishing at the University of Insubria since 2016. Her books have been reviewed or recommended by national magazines and newspapers such as Wired Italia, Tom’s Hardware Italia, La Repubblica, Tiscali News, and Global Science (Italian Space Agency). She is known in the Italian online community by her nickname, Anakina, which has become the name of her imprint.

Book preview

The Mentor

Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

Copyright © 2022 Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

All rights reserved.

Table of contents

The Mentor

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

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Copyright and disclaimer

THE MENTOR

Copyright © 2022 Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

Original title: Il mentore

© 2014 Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

Translation by: Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli (© 2022)

Translation revised by: Julia Gibbs

All rights reserved.

A different translation of this work was previously published by Amazon Publishing (2015).

Cover: © 2022 Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

Original picture: Christopher Campbell

A note from the author: although I have included some real information about the organisation of police forces in London, I nevertheless took full artistic licence concerning professional positions of numerous employees, as well as the logistics and procedures utilised by the Forensic Services and Murder Investigation Teams of London’s Metropolitan Police (e.g. some officers carrying weapons) in order to better adapt them to the plot.

This is the first novel in the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy.

This book is written in British English.

1

1994

A gush of my mother’s blood hit me in the face. She was holding her neck and looking at me with imploring eyes. She was trying to speak, but little more than a gurgling sound escaped her mouth.

Standing next to her, I was watching, petrified.

As much as she tried to stop it, blood ran between her fingers, soaking the blue coverlet of the big bed. It had formed a dark, threatening stain, which wouldn’t stop expanding.

I didn’t understand.

She kept on shaking the other hand spasmodically. She was pointing down.

When I’d heard the first shouting in the living room, I’d sought refuge in my parents’ room, hiding under the bed. After a few minutes, someone entered. I recognised my mother’s feet, but she wasn’t alone. A man whispered to her, ordering her to behave. If she did everything he told her, he wouldn’t kill her. I heard her whimpering.

Then there was a thud on the bed and my mother’s feet disappeared from view.

‘Yeah, that’s good,’ the stranger said. Shortly after, I couldn’t see his feet anymore, either.

I heard her shout, cry, while the bed started moving the way it used to do when my brother jumped around on it to scare me, knowing that I was hiding underneath.

That movement continued for a while, then stopped.

The man released a deep sigh. ‘Did you like it? Tell me the truth.’ I could hear shortness of breath in his voice.

But Mummy was silent.

‘Tell me you liked it, slut!’

‘I … liked it,’ she murmured at last.

A coarse laugh, then another shout. Then silence.

He was gone, so I decided to leave my hiding place.

‘Are you hurt, Mum?’

I could feel my eyes filling up with tears and I would’ve liked to run to her, to let her hug me, but I was scared of all that blood.

Her body trembled, once, twice, three times. Then her arm stopped moving and slipped on her side. Her gaze was empty, staring at nothing.

My teeth started chattering. I couldn’t stop them. Trembling, I headed for the door and looked out into the corridor. Paul was lying face down on the fitted carpet, motionless. More blood was wetting the back of his pyjama shirt.

For a moment, I considered rushing to him and shaking him, but deep inside I knew he wouldn’t be able to help me.

My father’s agonising screaming made me turn towards the living room.

‘No … please …’

‘No, please,’ an unknown male voice mocked him. ‘Is this the best you can say?’

‘I’ll give you whatever you want, but leave my family alone.’

Loud laughter reached me. It died down almost immediately.

As if attracted by an inescapable force, I covered, one by one, the few metres separating me from the living room. When I reached the doorway, I saw three men standing with their backs to me. They were tall, dressed in black. At once, I recognised the trainers of the one who had killed my mother.

My breath failed me and on instinct, I backed off, hiding behind the half-closed door. But I couldn’t leave. I wanted to understand.

One of the strangers moved, allowing me to see my father. He was tied to one of those chairs Mummy wouldn’t let me put my feet on; blood was all over him.

‘Where’s the safe?’ one of the three asked. He sounded gentle.

Daddy shook his head. ‘There’s no safe; I swear to God—’

He could not finish the sentence as the man grabbed a bottle from the table and hit him in the face with it. The glass shattered, throwing shards all around him, wine splashing his clothes.

‘Don’t lie to me!’ the assailant shouted. ‘I know perfectly well you have a safe. You must tell me where it is, and open it!’

‘I swear I have none,’ my father replied, imploring. Blood ran from a wound on his head and around the corner of his mouth.

The third man aimed a gun at his temple. ‘I’m killing this chap.’

‘Slow down. We need him alive, if we wanna open that fucking safe.’

The third man’s face twisted in a grimace. He removed the barrel of his gun from my father’s head and aimed it down.

There was a gunshot, followed by a scream.

‘Oh, yeah, are you screaming now?’ He kept on threatening him. ‘If you don’t tell me where the safe is, I’ll shoot you in your other foot, too.’

‘I have a better idea.’ A fourth man had spoken. He was tall, with burning eyes. He’d just walked in from the kitchen. He was carrying a big knife. ‘I intended to try this game with his wife and then his son, but given that some of you had the brilliant idea to snuff them out without asking my permission …’ He darted a disgusted glance at the other three, all of whom moved away. He seemed like the leader of the gang, even though he was little more than a boy.

My father wasn’t moving, waiting for his torturer to finish his speech.

‘I’m forced to cut off this daddy’s boy’s fingers one by one until he tells me where the jewellery is.’

For a moment, I thought I saw a glimpse of relief on my father’s face. At the time, I didn’t understand, but now I reckon he was thinking of me. They hadn’t mentioned me; perhaps I was still alive, perhaps they didn’t know I existed.

‘I’m not lying to you.’ Now he was speaking with deliberate obstinacy. ‘I own no valuable jewellery. There’s something belonging to my wife in our bedroom.’ He moved his head as for indicating the room. ‘But it isn’t worth much. I’m just an ordinary clerk. You’ve taken the wrong person.’

‘Shut your fucking mouth!’ the gang leader ordered. ‘I perfectly know who you are, and if there isn’t really anything valuable here … well … we’ll find out soon enough.’

He gestured to the man next to him. The latter moved closer to my father and grabbed his right wrist, pulled out his little finger, laying it on the table next to the chair and forcing him to close the other fingers.

‘No, please, you’re making a mistake!’

The leader raised the hand holding the knife and then brought it down. The dull noise of the blade shearing through the bone and sticking into the wood table-top was replaced by cries of pain.

I hadn’t imagined that my father was capable of emitting such a sound.

I backed off while an imaginary hand gripped my chest.

‘I swear to God!’

I recognised that noise again, even though I couldn’t see anymore what was happening. I ran away. I went back to my parents’ room. Mummy was still there, soaking in her own blood, her eyes wide open. I didn’t want to look at her, so I turned off the bedside lamp. Then I sneaked in under the bed.

More screams, and then more of them again. Unending screams. I put my fingers in my ears and pressed them as hard as I could until I heard nothing more.

I stayed there, unmoving, curled up in the dark. Without realising it, I slipped into a pleasant sleep and then dreamt that I was still in my bed, that all that horror was just a nightmare, that my mummy would come and wake me up and tell me to hurry, because I must go to school.

But when I woke, I was still there, on the fitted carpet under the bed. My hands were aching from keeping them on my ears. I tried to remove them. There was silence, save for the wind howling through the open window. I opened my eyes. There was light. It was already morning. Specks of dust, illuminated by the rays of sunlight, were whirling in front of me. I sneezed.

There was a dull thud, and the wind stopped howling.

‘Holy smoke!’ an authoritative man’s voice exclaimed. ‘Be careful, you may contaminate the scene.’

Footsteps. The clicking noise of a camera. The high-pitched sound of a flash charging.

‘Perhaps there was an open window and a current of air built up,’ another man’s voice suggested, this time younger. ‘I’ll go take a look.’

Footsteps moved closer until I saw a pair of black shoes entering the room.

A sigh. ‘Fuck,’ the new arrival murmured, then he added aloud, ‘There’s another corpse here!’

More clicking noise of a camera. The man squatted. I could see his knees. He put some kind of ruler on the floor, and then he clicked again.

He seemed about to stand up again, but then he stopped. He aimed his small electric torch down, then he started moving it, as if he was following something. My eyes were burning; my nose was running. I couldn’t help but sneeze again.

His head peeped under the bed. The light was aiming at me, blinding me. ‘Oh my God …’ He lowered his electric torch. It wasn’t bothering me now. ‘Hey, sweetheart, are you okay?’

I was looking at him, uncertain. A part of me wanted to respond to his tender voice, but at the same time, I didn’t know whether I could trust him.

‘Boss!’ the man called, turning to the door. ‘There’s a little girl here, she’s alive. Call the paramedics.’ Then he resumed looking at me. ‘What’s your name?’

I moved my lips, but no sound came out.

The man pointed the light beam towards a plastic card he wore on a cord around his neck. ‘I’m with the police. You have nothing to fear. Come, I’ll get you out.’ And he offered a hand to me. ‘My name is Eric, what’s your name?’

I stretched out both arms towards him. There was something reassuring in the sound of his voice. Or perhaps it was his name. I wanted to get out of there, and he could help me.

Eric dropped the electric torch and took my hands. ‘Promise you’ll keep your eyes shut until I tell you that you can open them, won’t you?’

I nodded and did as I’d been told.

I felt myself being dragged out from under the bed, and then lifted. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my head in his chest. I could feel his body swaying while he strode across the house.

‘Christ, a little girl …’ a woman’s voice commented.

‘Is the ambulance outside?’ Eric asked.

‘Yes, take her away.’ Again, the authoritative voice.

We resumed moving. I was holding him tight. I could sniff a chemical smell coming from his shirt, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I started to feel a sensation of calm. His hand was gently caressing my head, and each time he touched me, it felt like I was a little more protected, safe.

At last I could feel the wind blowing on my nightgown and the sun on the skin of my arms.

‘Okay, you can open your eyes now.’

I raised my head and half-opened my eyes. The bright daylight dazzled me and I was forced to place a hand on my face, but little by little I got accustomed to it. Until I could see him clearly.

Eric smiled. He seemed to me to have the most beautiful smile in the world. Not just his mouth was smiling, but his whole face, including his deep marine blue eyes.

‘Now, will you tell me your name?’

I could feel my lips widening. ‘Mina.’

2

Twenty years later

When Detective Inspector Miriam Leroux smashed her right hand onto the table in the interview room, the man flinched. She moved her head closer to his. A curl of her chestnut hair slipped onto her face. ‘We know it was you,’ she whispered. ‘And we can prove it. You’re going to rot in jail for the rest of your life.’

‘You can’t possibly have any proof!’ the suspect burst out.

She straightened her back. ‘Oh no? Why on earth not?’

‘Because …’ He paused for a moment. ‘Because I’m innocent.’

The detective laughed in his face. ‘Did you hear that? He says he’s innocent.’ She turned to Eric and resumed laughing.

The latter hadn’t uttered a word during the whole interrogation. He had been seated, impassive, while his colleague worked on the suspect. Theirs was a well-refined act. He, a team chief at the Forensic Services, used to sit there, browsing through a file and turning his gaze to the others from time to time, apparently uninterested. He did nothing but nod, crack a smile and keep on reading his papers. Sometimes he feigned a scowl and shook his head.

‘We have proof that it was you, Johnson. This time you’re finished.’ Serious again, Miriam had resumed speaking.

The suspect looked disoriented. Perhaps because he’d been sure he hadn’t left any proof of his involvement in the crime? Eric smiled to himself.

They’d been following that man for several months, because his name tended to come up in some murder cases that had all the signs of executions. There was the suspicion that he was a hired assassin. He’d been seen near the victims’ houses prior to the crimes, but Eric and Miriam were persuaded it was no coincidence. If he had been hired to kill those people, it would be natural that they couldn’t establish a motive, so they had to base the investigation entirely on physical evidence.

In each case, they had found the murder weapon abandoned at the scene of the crime. The serial numbers had been removed and there was no match with the ballistics. No fingermarks had been found on it, or anywhere else at the crime scenes. The locks were intact. Everything pointed to a suicide, except for the fact that the same thing had happened twelve different times. Twelve people had committed suicide at home, with untraceable weapons. None of the victims had left behind a farewell note or had previously shown any sign they wanted to take their own lives. Each of them had a number of declared enemies, but it was impossible to connect the latter with the deaths. They were either out of London or had an ironclad alibi for the time of the crime.

The thought that a professional could be involved hadn’t failed to come to the mind of the Detective Chief Inspector leading a team of the Forensic Services and his young colleague from the Murder Investigation Team assigned to the cases. Some time later, in ten of the videos coming from cameras located around the victims’ homes, they’d identified Damien Johnson, a former soldier on leave who worked as a private security guard, but appeared to live beyond his modest means.

Johnson’s sunken eyes challenged Miriam. ‘You have no proof,’ he said calmly, his thin face contracting slightly. ‘And this friend and foe game won’t work with me. I came here of my own free will, but I’m not bound to stay, unless you bring a formal charge against me.’

She kept watching him, some kind of detached curiosity on her face.

‘Otherwise, you’re going to have to deal with my lawyer.’

Without raising his gaze from the file, Eric took out a photograph and put it on the table in front of Johnson.

The man froze. ‘What is it supposed to be?’

‘These are your fingerprints,’ Eric said at last, abandoning his long silence. ‘We found them on the murder weapon.’

The suspect seemed to stop breathing for a moment. Then he shook his head. ‘It’s a trick!’ he shouted, moving the photograph away. ‘My fingerprints are not on the murder weapon.’

‘Are they?’ Eric turned his eyes straight on him. ‘How come? Perhaps because you wore gloves?’

Johnson smiled. ‘You’re bluffing. You have nothing.’

‘So if I test your right hand for gunpowder residue, it’ll come back negative, won’t it?’

The other man barely kept himself from grimacing. He seemed pensive now.

Eric knew well the reason for that change in his behaviour. Just the day before, the suspect had fired a shot into the air to scare off some stray dogs near a house he was watching. He’d reported it to the company he worked for, to justify the missing bullet. The test would come back positive in any case. And that was precisely what Eric and Miriam were counting on, even though it didn’t necessarily mean that the residue would be compatible with the bullet recovered from the corpse of the victim. But Johnson wasn’t a forensic scientist. Perhaps they would never go to trial.

‘I use guns every day for work.’ Johnson closed his eyelids for a moment. Every part of his body was committed to show a calm he certainly didn’t possess.

‘Ah!’ Miriam exclaimed with ill-concealed sarcasm.

Eric gestured to her with one outspread hand. He was maintaining the composed attitude of someone who had everything under control. He knew that this made suspects nervous, especially when they were guilty. And Johnson was no doubt guilty. He had escaped justice too many times for lack of proof, but this would be the decisive one. With just a gentle push, they’d be able to lock him up; and the fact he’d recently used his gun at work had given them the opportunity to apply that push.