Pelican Island

By Adam James Evans

When Carly Black stepped off the school bus, nobody could have imagined it would be the last time anyone saw her. The public wants answers.

In the wake of a police scandal, infamous columnist David Budge demands them!

With all roads pointing to Aaron Keogh, a local salesman with money problems, DCI Sam Mainard soon discovers his number one suspect knows more than letting on. But to find the truth, Mainard must challenge his loyalties.

Four years later, Karina Nylund, sister of one of Halmstad's most formidable gang members, reappears after thirteen years. She's been incarcerated with no contact with the outside world. So why does Karina hold such interest in Carly Black?

What's the connection? To find out, private detective Elliot West must dig deeper, connecting the bloody history of Halmstad with Carly Black.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781447878933

Book preview

Chapter 1

Thursday, 13th November 2008

The slam of a car door.

Detective Chief Inspector Sam Mainard’s feet laboured in the mud as he trudged to number four Parsonage Birches. Five huge black ravens were perched like snipers in the branches overhead, sharing a conversantly sedate song. There was something conspiratorial about it. Like extras on the set of a theatre play, he thought as he went by, hands thrust in pockets. From the dormant vehicles to the eerie quiet of sheltered windows, it all felt fake, like props. The Blacks’ house might well have been an ornate painted backdrop, waiting for the cast to enter.

But this wasn’t a play. Nor the work of an auteur filmmaker. This was real. Here, there were no guarantees of resolution. In fact, for most missing persons cases, happy endings were rare.

Missing persons.

A little below the paygrade of a DCI, but the new Detective Chief Superintendent Cochoran had considered Carly Black’s last sighting, just a hundred yards from home had opened the door to foul play as much as the runaway theory. Still, a little early for Major Crimes by Mainard’s book, but perhaps Cochoran just wanted him to jump through a few more hoops before he could fully resume his duties.

‘You’re a good detective, Sam. But when I ask you to do something, it’s no quarrels. You can follow my instructions, or I’ll find someone that can. Are we clear?’

‘Crystal!’

Mainard tugged his ear. After he knocked, hurried feet scampered to the door and bolts shot across. The door was thrown open, and he was met with a momentous disappointment falling upon him.

No, it’s not your daughter, I’m afraid.

The hope on Mrs Natalie Black now died before his very eyes, replaced with a look of comprehension. Life wasn’t that kind. She looked him up and down with heavy-lidded eyes. How many hours had she been sat up, expectantly awaiting news of her daughter? Maybe the first officers to arrive here had seen a different person. One still brimming with optimism and not so disenchanted.

‘Mrs Black. I’m DCI Sam Mainard.’ He showed his badge. She nodded, then backed inside. In the kitchen, Mr Darren Black was leant wearily against the unit, sandwiched by a couple he presumed were Carly’s grandparents, who were sedately uttering words of reassurance, rocking a toddler, Carly’s three-year-old sister, on their laps. DI Jane Rees, who’d arrived earlier, stood sombrely between them. Proof that things had moved quickly up the chain. But it was nice to see a friendly face. Jane was his sister-in-law (though she had continued with her maiden name) which meant he trusted her implicitly. Secondly, she was the best detective in Major Crimes, possessing tact by the bucketload. The kind that would make these agonising hours, days, perhaps even weeks, he feared, that little more bearable.

The focus fell upon him as he entered, and Mainard observed the stress lines growing like stems around the Blacks’ eyes. Carly’s father appeared washed out, stunned by it all.

Call it shock.

Mrs Black dropped into a chair by the kitchen table, resting her head in her hands. Carly had been gone a day now. And neighbours had seen nothing. To all intents and purposes, she’d vanished. Not one word since she’d stepped off the school bus the previous day.

Mainard gave Jane a nod before slipping into the seat nearest Carly’s mother. ‘Mrs Black. I promise we’ll be doing everything in our power to find your daughter. It’s important you know we have our best people out looking for Carly right now.’

A sombre nod.

‘Now, we have some questions for you both. And I can’t stress how important it is that you answer them honestly. Any detail, no matter how irrelevant it may seem, could be important.’

A sniffling response, more a high-pitched shriek. ‘Who’s taken my baby?’

Her husband went to her, rubbing her shoulders. ‘We don’t know anybody has yet.’

It was true. Carly Black had only been missing a day. But her friends and grandparents had all drawn a blank when looking for her. Her friends weren’t local. Nor was it the habit of the fifteen-year-old to go wandering off. When she hadn’t shown for school the next morning, the parents who’d held out hope she’d stayed at friends, were driven into frenzy. By late morning, Carly was declared a missing person.

‘Do you know of anybody who’d have reason to want to harm your daughter? Anybody at all?’ Mainard asked.

The Blacks glanced at each other. The last colour draining from already withered faces. ‘Why? Why do you ask that? What’s happened?’ Mr Black asked.

He exchanged a glance with Jane. ‘Nothing has happened. We have to consider every possibility is all.’

Mrs Black looked bereft as she shook her head. ‘No, Carly’s a good kid. Never in trouble or anything like that.’

Mainard went to the window, which overlooked a neatly cut lawn that slanted downward to a picket fence, blockading stretches of woodland beyond. A tiny shed was tucked in the corner, rising into nettles and clasping branches. Mainard turned back to face the room.

‘What about in school? Any problems there?’

Mr Black, still rubbing his wife’s shoulder answered, ‘No. We’ve never had any problems, have we?’

This time it was his wife who concurred.

‘Boyfriends?’

Mrs Black looked utterly dumbstruck. ‘Last summer, she was seeing someone from school.’

‘That was finished,’ added Mr Black firmly.

A little too firmly. Mainard said softly, ‘What was his name? The boyfriend?’

‘Dylan Blake.’

Jane was scribbling it all in a notepad.

‘Do you know if Carly kept a diary?’

Mrs Black buried her face in her hands. ‘I-I-I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think so.’

She sobbed, and something tore away at Mainard. He was staring at the results of a locomotive hitting her square in the stomach.

‘Thank you. Mrs Black. You mind if we look around?’

Mrs Black agreed, dispiritedly leading them to the upstairs bedrooms. Carly’s was the smallest of three; a neat little square above the kitchen extension at the back, overlooking the garden. The door was already ajar as they stepped inside. From the net curtains sheeting the window to the floral bed cover, Carly Black had the archetypal fifteen-year-old’s room; boyband posters lined the walls with an array of cosmetics cluttered on a bedside chest of drawers. There was also a tidy desktop for homework perched against the wall immediately as you entered.

Mrs Black left them alone.

‘Cochoran give you a hard time?’ asked Jane once Mrs Black was out of earshot.

‘Told me to keep my head down. Not too much else.’

This was his first case since a six-month suspension following an investigation into misconduct. One that had collapsed at the first hurdle. Mainard had kept his job. Now he needed to regain his colleagues’ trust. Not Cochoran’s, but the very person he was looking at. Jane had distanced herself since it all came out. Maybe not intentionally, but things were different now.

‘That all?’

Mainard said, ‘Told me I’m lucky to be here.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Lucky. Twenty years’ service. You believe that?’

Jane shrugged. ‘She has her ways.’

He drew his focus around the room. ‘A decent size,’ he declared.

‘For an only child in a three-bedroom.’

Standing on an oak chest of draws was a selection of framed photos. There was a portrait of Carly Black beside a beautiful horse; she posed rubbing her cheek against its neck. A bright, spirited, dimpled smile shone out of her heart-shaped face, chocolate hair flecked with lighter patches of caramel from the summer sunshine. She was a good-looking kid. Next to it, there were some photos of the girl clutching a rabbit which tallied with the enclosure he’d observed downstairs beyond the kitchen window. In another photo, she was in a group of four sat around a campfire, wearing a baggy pink hoody and some dirty wellies. She wore her hair messier this time, tied loosely and wet from the weather. Mainard considered these young, carefree faces. The pain would spread like ripples in water. Carly’s disappearance would damage more than simply her parents. It would grow, tearing the very bonds of these same happy kids. Her friends who’d yet to be informed.

‘They say anything to you before I got here?’

‘That they’ve been phoning around. Friends say Carly was definitely on the bus yesterday and passengers saw her take a shortcut across some tracks to Rhos.’

Mainard nodded. He replaced the photograph. ‘The bus didn’t stop at Rhos?’

‘Yes, but she took the path regularly as a shortcut. Someone might’ve known that,’ she added quietly. 

‘Careful. We don’t know she’s been taken yet. Could be a runaway.’

Jane raised her brows dubiously. ‘I’m not saying it is. Let’s not jump to conclusions though.’

Mainard stepped to the window, feeling at the mesh curtain, considering its functionality. He made a mental note to study the veil from the outside upon leaving. Mainard peeled his attentions from the window. ‘Her computer. We’ll need access to her social media accounts and phone records. She’s fifteen – it’s highly likely she was texting or making a call between leaving the school and getting off at Alltwen. If we’re lucky, maybe after she got off.’

Mainard examined every corner. Everything in the draws was neatly folded. Books stood perfectly aligned between bookends on a wall-mounted shelf, their spines ironed like they’d never been used. But the distinct yellowing of the paper told Mainard they had been. There was a tendency to vampire stories. He recalled Mrs Black’s statement: ‘Carly Black’s a good kid.’ She had enough books to paint the picture of a studious child. Or one fixated by the sense of escapism.

The bed was well made, the pillows puffed. In fact, the only trace anyone had been there was a used Coke can on the bedside table beside a novel she’d been in the middle of. Mainard stooped beside the bed, rummaging through the half-full bin. Mostly sweets. Starburst. Haribo wrappers. Other colourful choices. Carly Black had a sweet tooth.

There came a buzzing from Jane’s pocket, and she took the call, leaving him to nose around. It was brief, one sided. When done, she declared, ‘That was Leah.’

The admission piqued Mainard’s interest. Leah Price was the senior SOCO and had been searching Carly’s last known location. Jane added, ‘They’ve just found Carly Black’s phone.’

What runaway leaves behind a phone? True, Carly might’ve wanted some time to herself. But Mainard knew the average teenager couldn’t last ten minutes without their mobile. Nor their computers for that matter. Myspace, MSN. All these things kids depended upon. The fact that Carly no longer had her phone threw a dark pall over Mainard’s mind. Without her technological lifeline, it was possible that Carly Black hadn’t run away. She had been taken.

Chapter 2

Thursday, 3rd July 2008

Aaron Keogh considered the letterhead, its sharp-edged text written in malice. He imagined some pathetic little man in a boxy little office enjoying their officious little task. He blinked, his heart sinking further. The statement whipping the air from his lungs.

Final Notice Before Legal Action

Keogh had flirted with the threat for months – the price of living the good life in a time of economic decline. The longer he considered it, the more he struggled to piece together how it had come to this. First, there were the contractors who’d rendered his roof. Then, the newly installed windows and doors before the most expensive of the lot—a loft conversion that had meant re-mortgaging. Re-mortgaging! At thirty-four!

Perhaps the bank should’ve said no. But anyone who was anyone knew Crabtree Motors paid well. Particularly their salesmen. Last year, Keogh had taken home a cool fifty grand. The year before, even more. Come to think of it, he hadn’t earned so much as a penny less than forty grand since the age of twenty-one. And property was dirt cheap in Briton Ferry.

Five years ago, he’d leapt into it, thinking he’d be done before forty. But things had swung the wrong way these past six weeks. It was everywhere you looked. In fact, it was near impossible to catch the news these days without some piece about Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch among others who’d found themselves caught in a wave of stomach-churning vertigo. Then came the energy crisis, and the clattering realisation that the new-car market was not just dipping, but free-falling. The driest month in four years after taking out both personal loans and spending near ten grand on a new watch and coat. You couldn’t write it. Combine that with a generally carefree approach to spending and you’ve got problems. How easy it was to zap away fifty quid here, seventy quid there, an extra bottle of wine, perhaps another for the table when on business. That was just the culture. You spent big and gave it the big I am so that everybody knew; Aaron Keogh’s cock is bigger than yours. And here was the outcome. It all added up. Six months ago – when the first payments had been missed – Keogh wasn’t worried. He had savings. Who didn’t have a little nest to fall back on these days?

But then came the worst.

His portfolio had nosedived with the destructive collapse of the stock market. Over forty thousand pounds worth of investments wiped out in an instant. Thirteen years’ savings. Gone. And Keogh, like so many others who had borrowed too much, was left to face the music. At first came the desperate search for assets. Anything he could use as collateral to cover his losses. But with his mortgage already defaulting, there was nothing. 

How had it come to this? In his twenties, he’d been careful. Made the sensible choices. Okay, with investing came risk, but Keogh had been assured the markets were strong.

Here, the letter said different.

He tossed it in the bin. How dare they come for him now? It was these people who had screwed up. Like everything, the ordinary man in the street paid the penalty. No credit. No bailouts. Just the desperate scramble for survival in what had turned into a global recession. At the fourth time of asking, Keogh had missed payments. Now, foreclosure.

Amber had a dumbfounded look on her face as she came to his side. Then rubbing his shoulders. None of it helped Keogh, who was nursing a strong glass of malt as if medicine.

‘What are we going to do?’

A mirthless laugh. ‘What can we do? We’re fucked.’

‘What about work? Can they give you an advance?’

He raised his brows, amused. ‘You serious?’

If annoyed by his crudeness, she didn’t show it. Rather, she added, more steadfast, ‘Ten years’ service. Why not?’

He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and index. ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on out there? I mean, look around you. Who the fuck has money to buy cars with everything that’s going on? The company’s letting people go every day and you want me to go and ask for an advance? I’ll be lucky if I keep my job the way things are.’ He hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but his emotions were charged.

She slid onto the stool next to him, still rubbing his shoulders. ‘Would that be the worst thing?’

His jaw went slack in disbelief.

‘I’m just saying there’ll be a redundancy package, won’t there?’

He shrugged. Perhaps she was right. But what then? He’d be without a job with nobody looking to employ. It would keep the wolves from the door, but not for long. It was just kicking the can down the road. He knew from office whispers what the redundancy package was, and it wasn’t nearly enough to ride out the next six months. He muttered, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.’

‘We’ll think of something.’

‘I wish I had your optimism.’

Keogh’s gaze wandered. How much longer would he call his home? This letter was the final straw. Two weeks’ notice to pay up or face court action. He racked his brains for the solution.

‘What about your father?’ Keogh asked.

‘What about him?’

‘You’re close, aren’t you? We could ask for a loan?’

Every Sunday, Amber had visited her father. Though Keogh never tagged along, he knew from her they were as close as a father and daughter could ever hope to be.

‘I can’t. I still owe him the deposit for my flat.’

Amber rented a small flat in nearby Port Talbot with manageable rent. At least she wouldn’t be left homeless when the shit hit the fan. Still, he daydreamed. Visualising some aha! moment where the solution presented itself. Where was that unchecked lottery ticket from last month?

He took a final gulp, the ice jiggling in the glass, and felt his insides warm a little. Immediately refilling the glass, he had one goal this evening: get shit-faced. Maybe the same tomorrow. Who cared anymore? Reading his state of mind, Amber rose and tilted his head to face him. ‘I’m going home.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Chin up. We’ll think of something.’

He mustered a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Ultimately defeated. Keogh poured himself another glass. In a few hours, he’d be numb.

Chapter 3

Thursday, 13th November 2008

Carly had got off the school bus at Alltwen, the sharp incline that forked off the main road toward Rhos. From here, she’d taken a shortcut across unmarked tracks leading to the bottom of Primrose Lane, a little cul-de-sac that widened at the top onto the main road toward Parsonage Birches. Five hundred yards from home. Here, the houses were larger, cordoned off by gates with gravel driveways and double garages.

As Mainard stared up at the nearest window, he wondered, Did any of you see something?

The first response had already questioned Carly Black’s neighbours, who said they’d not seen Carly arrive home. It was time to go further. The houses along Primrose Lane were quite unassuming, with their drapes unashamedly pulled closed against the darkening winter sky, but Mainard sensed a few were most likely peeking out, observing the comings and goings.

Forensics had already cordoned off the bottom of Primrose Lane when Mainard arrived. On approach, he was practically chewing the dankness of tree sap and dirty rainwater. He glanced around for traces of a news van, but there were none. If the papers had known, it would’ve have been a struggle just to get by. Both Mainard and Jane showed their badges, before donning a pair of forensic suits and stepping down a set of stone steps onto the halfway point of a muddy track. At the bottom, an officer manned the perimeter with a curt nod as they ducked under more tape. The track was relatively narrow and covered by leaves, and a thick boscage leering in from both sides. A roll of police tape ushered them along the main trail to where the SOCOs had converged further down, having erected a shelter around the scene. Outdoor crimes were a bastard. Particularly in the UK. They were always fighting the weather; just a single drop of rain could ruin everything. Moreover, they were smack bang in the middle of winter with the sun setting before four o’clock.

Mainard observed Leah Price, the head of the forensics team, stooped, examining the ground close to the path. ‘Stay behind the tape,’ she called sternly without even looking up. Leah was dainty, at a little over five foot, but feisty with it. As she rose, she glanced up, surprise registering on her face. She tried best to collect herself, but it was clear Leah was evidently unaware of Mainard’s return to work. She came to meet them, wiping her hands.

‘Good afternoon to you too.’ Jane quipped.

‘You’ve been busy Leah…?’ Said Mainard.

Leah began gesticulating. ‘The track runs about a half mile from Alltwen to Rhos. It’s a fair bit closer to Parsonage Birches than the next bus stop, which is probably why she got off in Alltwen.’ Mainard knew the geography. After stopping in Alltwen, the bus would’ve struggled up the rest of the hill toward the main road, conceivably stopping three to four times to give way, such was the narrowness. Much quicker to simply get off in Alltwen and make the quarter mile trek on foot than having to go back on herself by waiting until the next stop in Rhos. It was logic that had brought her this way. The same logic that had left her alone and vulnerable.

Mainard stared toward the furthest end of the track. From here, the clearing appeared tiny and barely a small fissure under the thick copse of trees smothering the exit towards the sloped hills of Alltwen. Then back to the stone steps at the end of the cul-de-sac road where they had come from. Mainard had wanted to see it from Alltwen, the spot of Carly’s last reported sighting from school friends who saw her get off the bus. That way, they could walk in Carly’s footsteps. See what she saw. 

‘We’re still searching the area, it looks like a few people have been this way recently, so it’s tough to say which are Carly’s,’ Leah continued.

‘Meaning?’ said Mainard.

‘We’re taking casts. But judging by the patterns and the popularity of the track, we can only guess at this stage.’ Leah, clearly saw the dissatisfaction fall across Mainard’s face, added while pointing at a set of tracks in the mud. ‘Look here. These footprints are a little bigger than your average fifteen-year-old girl.’ Mainard followed them with his eyes; they were barely evident amid the smudges of rainwater, but Leah who had removed a UV torch from her pocket moved around them and like the ink of a developing polaroid, the patterns exposed themselves.

Mainard considered Leah. There was a reason she’d zeroed in on these.

‘We followed them. They’re in both directions which tells me whoever they belong to was pacing.’

As in waiting.

‘They’re there at the top of Alltwen. A little deeper here too, which suggests he’d been still, planted there for a while.’

‘He …?’ It was Jane who interjected.

‘They are somewhere between a size eight and ten by the looks of it. Little bigger than your average woman, wouldn’t you say?’

Leah continued, washing light over a smaller set of footprints, more akin to the fifteen-year-old Carly Black. ‘Let’s assume these are Carly’s for a minute.’

‘Okay …’

‘Well, these here….’ She pointed to the man’s footprints, ‘…are matching, almost stride for stride. And looking at it, Carly certainly wasn’t running.’

Meaning, she wasn’t threatened.

Leah rose, following the tracks toward the stone steps and Primrose Lane.

‘This is where Carly would’ve gone. Primrose Lane is a cul de sac, so there’s only one exit from there. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘Okay, so stick with me a moment.’

To Mainard’s surprise, Leah continued, past the steps and toward a clearing where three tall power pylons stood. The ground was marred by more hectic patterns, smudges and furrows in the earth. By the way the footprints widened, slipping, converged into one another and a set of palm prints minced in among the mires of mud, it was possible that something of a struggle had taken place here. He found his eyes wandering back along the route. It was drier back there on the path, with thicker branches shielding a little more of the rainwater from contaminating the impressions. Here in the clearing, it was a forensic nightmare.

‘All looks a bit messy, doesn’t it?’ She said, stooping low and spreading UV light over the remnants of the same intricate pattern she believed might’ve been Carly’s.

‘Carly’s?’

‘I don’t know. But if they are, why on earth did she come this way? Her way home is back there on those steps.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Well, since you ask…’ She gestured to a colleague who handed her aplastic evidence bag from a fellow SOCO. ‘Imagine my excitement when we found this.’

Inside the bag, lay a pistol.

Mainard felt the dread filling up inside him.

Leah stated. ‘It’s not real.’

But Carly wouldn’t have known that.

‘You said Carly’s footprints disappear back there at the steps?’ Mainard asked.

‘Well, sort of. They’re still here, but one look at this mess and you can see why I might hang fast on committing any further.’

‘But you think they’re Carly’s?’ Asked Jane.

Again, Leah wore a smug expression of knowing something they didn’t. There was a reason she’d homed in on this second set of footprints. And then, he understood.

‘This is where you found Carly’s phone.’

‘Yep, we bagged it. We’ll dust it for prints and swab for fibres.’

‘Where exactly?’

She pointed toward the furthest part of the clearing, where the three cable towers led off in different directions. ‘Near the foot of that tower.’

Mainard folded his lip. Unsure now.

‘So, what are saying happened here Leah?’

‘At this stage, its guesswork. Like I said before, the trouble is, there’s so much overlap.’ A dejected shrug, ‘Who knows how many have passed this way before we cordoned it off.’

‘Locals. Dog walkers?’ offered Jane.

‘There’s some paw prints here,’ agreed Leah. ‘Makes it a forensic nightmare. We find a hair – it could be from anything from a dog, to woodland animals.

Mainard glanced over Leah’s shoulder at a team pouring some plaster into the furthest indentions in the mud. He admired them. The real detective work so often took place in the lab these days.

‘Can you isolate the footprints?’

She blew out her cheeks. ‘Should be able to. We’re taking samples. Hopefully, there’ll be something that tells us what exactly happened here. It’s a little early yet. If we can get anyone who went this way to come forward, it would be a help in separating them.’

‘Anything else?’

Leah bit her bottom lip. She looked almost apologetic. ‘Like I said, if these are Carly Blacks footprints, she wasn’t running. All I can tell you is that we’ve got a size-four footprint here, and someone seemingly walking with her.’

Walking. Someone she trusted.

‘And they finish here just before the steps to Primrose Lane,’ she said.

‘But you said there’s a struggle here?’ Mainard said.

‘Looks that way.’

‘And Carly’s phone was found here too. Points to foul play, doesn’t it?’ Jane said.

‘Potentially,’ admitted Leah.

‘A bit risky, isn’t it?’ Jane said, ‘What if somebody came?’

Mainard had to agree. Though concealed by trees, it wasn’t exactly the perfect foil, nor would it have been dark, given the supposed time of the incident.

So, what? Was this just spontaneity?

Leah agreed. ‘Very. One way in and out. But you’ve got a decent view of anyone coming from the top of Alltwen.’

Leah led them back to the spot where Carly’s footprints had disappeared. ‘It’s all a bit too nice and clean if you know what I mean. If there’s any blood, let’s hope it shows.’ She motioned to a yard or two before the stone steps toward the last of a long line of trees bordering the path. ‘Here, the indentions go deeper, like a pair of heels digging in. They are the size fours too.’

‘Meaning?’

‘It indicates leaning back.’’

Like someone had fallen backward. Or was pulled.

‘Anyway, this tree would be about right for balance.’

You mean for lifting someone off the ground? Perhaps carrying someone.

Leah read his expression. ‘I’m not saying anything. Only that the prints are deeper here. Like I say, we’ll hopefully have some answers for you by the morning.’

‘All right, thanks, Leah.’

Both Mainard and Jane slipped away to the far end, where the track came out. This end was quieter, a cul-de-sac to anyone but the owners of the ten or so houses leading up to Rhos. The home of the Blacks lay hidden just on the bend ahead, meaning she’d quite literally made it to within two hundred yards of safety.

When they reached the street, Jane asked, ‘So what you think?’

Mainard observed the tracks from the clearing. It appeared narrower now, like the tentacles of branches had somehow closed in. He followed the wires above the forest, leading across the neighbouring fields in both directions toward Alltwen and Pontardawe.

‘Start at the bottom,’ he said, gesturing the houses on Alltwen Hill. ‘If our man was waiting this side of the track, then maybe somebody saw him.’

‘Leah thinks it’s a snatch, doesn’t she?’ Jane said. ‘All that talk about the footprints and a struggle.’

‘Whatever she thinks doesn’t matter. It’s evidence that’s important.’

‘Well, I can tell you for sure what she does think. She seemed surprised to see you on the case.’

‘It’s understandable.’

This was his first case of note since his suspension.

‘It’s bollocks is what it is.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Anyway, from what I saw back there, let’s not be too discouraged.’

‘How’s that?’

He met her eyes. ‘Carly Black hasn’t turned up dead yet.’

Chapter 4

Thursday, 13th December 2012

‘You said it was about a woman?’

Elliot West and Steffan Mathieson were sat in twin wing chairs beside an unlit stone fireplace inside a cosy little coffee shop, at the heart of Wotton Under Edge. West laced his hands over his legs, sat back disarmingly. Steffan Mathieson – parked opposite – picked the brown leather with his fingertips. Steffan wasn’t how West had imagined him. He had a kind of leathery look, as if he’d spent too many days in the sun. A small tuft of hair atop those piercing eyes – an opal blue, rather like Daniel Craig. But younger, thirty perhaps. He was fidgety. His voice a touch wobbly.

‘It’s rather difficult. I’m not sure where to begin.’ He spoke, rather structured. It was clear English was a second language.

‘You said it was about a woman,’ repeated West, consulting his notes on a notepad he’d scribbled on at short notice. He worked as a freelance investigator/consultant for Crawford Consultancy, and Steffan Mathieson had approached them with claims of inheritance fraud. That was the crux of it. A call was made to discuss the bare bones of it and a meeting arranged.

Steffan straightened. ‘Yes. Karina. She’s my cousin.’

‘Tell me about her.’

Steffan mustered a tight-lipped smile that didn’t reach the eyes. ‘Karina and I were close as children. I think it was because we are the similar age, and her brothers were so much older. We grew up together in Halmstad and