Dance With the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller
JAMES NALLY
Dance with the Dead
Copyright
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
This ebook edition 2016
Copyright © James Nally 2016
Cover design © Jem Butcher Design 2016
James Nally asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy 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.
Ebook Edition © August 2016: 9780008150884
Source ISBN: 9780008149550
Version: 2016-06-29
Dedication
Jim and Bunny Nally
Thanks
Table of Contents
Cover
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
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Postscript
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
Prologue
Let’s get one thing straight – I’m not a ‘psychic cop’. I can’t predict the future. God knows if I could, I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in right now.
Nor do I possess some macabre ability to contact the dead, and I feel nothing but contempt for those chancers who claim that they can. You know who you are … psychics, mediums, men of the cloth.
But something’s not right. Every time I get close to the body of a murder victim, they appear to me in the middle of the night. I’d like to say they turn up in my dreams. That would neatly explain it away. But they don’t. They appear when I’m awake, and engage with me. At first, it scared me half to death. Until I realised they were trying to tell me something.
They’re always trying to tell me something.
It’s got to be my subconscious mind, right? Presenting clues to me in a novel fashion? To a devout sceptic like me, anything else is unthinkable.
I told three people about my ‘visits’ from the other side. My brother thought I’d ‘lost it’. My shrink almost destroyed my fledgling cop career. My ex-girlfriend tried to kill me.
So I’m not telling anyone else. If this cursed ‘gift’ helps me crack more murder cases, then I’ll reap that benefit in secret.
No one else needs to know about my occasional Dance with the Dead.
Chapter 1
Manor House, North London
Saturday, April 10, 1993; 13.30
The Woodberry housing estate’s basketball courts heaved, the thudding of balls and squealing of trainers sounding like a massacre at a school for mice. A car alarm’s shrill whistle pinged about the tired old tower blocks, like the yelps of a seagull strapped to a high-speed propeller. A souped-up, blacked-out Ford Escort growled past, its drum ’n’ bass heart spreading Kiss FM and fresh defiance.
As I got close to my car, two large men in dark clothes appeared. One leaned against my driver’s door while the other walked towards me.
‘Donal Lynch?’
‘Not me,’ I lied, veering sharply to my left and taking a route between two rows of parked cars.
The car leaner read it well, heading me off where the final two vehicles stood off, face to face, like duelling cowboys.
So did we …
Behind him, a large, blacked-out jeep pulled up. The back door ghosted open.
‘Get in,’ his strong Dublin accent insisted, and I found myself hoping to God this was the IRA. At least I had some leverage with the boyos.
But the acid sizzling my gut told me these were Jimmy Reilly’s grunts, and that he’d dreamed up something diabolical for them to do to me today.
Chapter 2
One week earlier …
Arsenal, North London
Saturday, April 3, 1993
My drunken mistake hadn’t been falling asleep fully clothed – God knows I’d survived that often enough – but forgetting to remove the pager from my front left trouser pocket. Its sudden vibration sent an electroconvulsive blast through my piss–filled nads, forcing my unconscious mind to perform a urethral emergency stop. I woke to the sound of my own desperate yelps.
‘Tom, Brownswood Red-Light Zone N4 – Check MO’ flickered the blunt paged message. My clock radio’s Martian digits glowered 0754. Below me, a stricken wine bottle spewed red across the cheap laminate. I saluted Shiraz, my fallen night nurse, for delivering almost three whole hours of sleep.
My grudging slumber had been broken only once, by a recurring nightmare that hadn’t afflicted me for weeks. Why did it come back last night? Was he in some sort of danger?
To banish my angst, I flicked on the radio.
Lost in the Milky Way
Smile at the empty sky and wait for
The moment a million chances may all collide
The Lightning Seeds’ ‘The Life of Riley’ seemed way too excitable for this time of day. I padded into the bathroom. Murdered prostitutes, or ‘toms’ to use police parlance, had become my area of professional expertise these days. Anyone would think I was trying to save their souls. But I had a point to prove about solving their murders. A career-salvaging point, I hoped.
Having spent the past six months on the Cold Case Squad dealing with long-dead stiffs, I comforted myself that at least this body would still be warm. Maybe she’d come to me tonight, like those murder victims had two years ago. Before all the trouble …
I’ll be the guiding light
Swim to me through stars that shine down
And call to the sleeping world as they fall to earth
Or maybe those weird, inexplicable episodes had run their course. A large part of me hoped so. In the meantime, I decided to find out all I could about this local vice hot spot that had slipped below my radar, and knew just the man to help, so I cranked up the radio full blast.
So, here’s your life
We’ll find our way
We’re sailing blind
But it’s certain, nothing’s certain
‘Turn off that shite,’ roared Fintan from his room. I knew he’d have to surface for a piss now too. He’d been in a worse state than me, having spent all day with his cop contacts, slumped over some bar like slugs in a saucer of booze.
We’d wordlessly devised a morning routine that kept us apart, leaving our hangovers free to fester in peace. But my older brother’s success as a crime reporter owed much to his unabashed familiarity with London’s carnal underbelly. ‘Vice Admiral Lynch’ they called him. And worse.
So, as he staggered out of the gloom, squinting like Barabbas and scratching his expense-account gut, I seized my chance; ‘I suppose you know that Finsbury Park has its very own red-light district around Brownswood Road?’
‘Well, I thought it best not to tell you –’ he yawned ‘– I’ve seen your patter with the ladies. I didn’t want you getting knocked back by a Skeeger. That could push you over the edge.’
‘A Skeeger?’
‘Yeah, you know, a raspberry. A toss-up. A rock star.’
‘Sorry, Fintan, I don’t speak Snoop Dogg. What are you on about?’
‘Crack hoe?’
‘What, the city in Poland?’
‘No, ya fucking eejit. Crack whores. That’s what they are down there. They sell sex for rocks of crack. Desperate skanks really.’
‘Ooh.’ I heard myself blanche.
‘It’s small scale, probably about a dozen girls. I can’t believe you don’t know about it.’
‘I’m not a vice cop,’ I protested. ‘It’s never been mentioned in any of my cases.’
‘All I know is it’s the scrag end of the game. Guess what the going rate for full sex is?’ he asked, hosing down the porcelain.
‘I wouldn’t have the first idea,’ I said. ‘Hey, this is like a sordid version of The Price is Right, you know, higher, higher …’
‘Or “The Vice is Right”, except my advice would be lower, lower. Fifteen quid for full sex. Fiver for a blow job. Ten without a johnny. I mean, sweet Jesus, most of them don’t have any teeth left. Can you imagine?’
I couldn’t but, as he vigorously shook his cock, Fintan seemed to be having no trouble at all …
‘Putting your unbagged member into one of those scabby gobs? Jesus, you’d have to be one sick pup. Or desperate.’
‘At least the men have a choice,’ I said.
‘Ah, don’t give me that old liberal shit,’ he harrumphed, rinsing his hands. ‘Why slave on your feet in McDonald’s or a factory all day when you can earn a fortune lying on your back? They know the dangers. No one forces them to do it.’
‘Violent pimps?’ I felt tempted to say but I knew it’d be pointless. Fintan’s binary outlook on life was crucial to his job. In a world where everything had to be explained in 300 words or less, black and white barely had space to tangle, leaving no room for tedious grey.
‘Are they all crack heads then?’ I asked.
‘Jesus, you’d hope so. What else would reduce them to that? Anyway, why are you asking?’
‘They’ve found a body near Brownswood. They want me to take a look, see if it tallies with any of the unsolved cases I’ve been looking at.’
‘What, you mean the other whacked hookers?’
I bristled. ‘The women who were murdered who happened to be on the game, yes. They’re still human beings, Fintan, you know … somebody’s sister, somebody’s daughter.’
‘Yeah, but let’s not idealise these girls. None of them were in the running for Nobel Prizes, were they? Or doing charity work? Most of them ended up on the streets because they got kicked out of even the scuzziest massage parlours for stealing from the other girls, or punters or taking drugs.’
‘Jeez, maybe you could say a few words at this girl’s funeral.’
‘Well, at least it’s a fresh body for you, Donal. At last …’
‘Yep,’ I said dismissively.
‘Your first since …’
‘Yes,’ I cut in again.
‘Wow,’ he said, his tone of false wonder mocking me, ‘I wonder if you still have the gift?’
‘That stuff’s all in the past,’ I snapped at his hatefully-curled top lip. ‘I had the treatment. I got the all-clear. End of.’
But Fintan could never resist twisting a well-anchored knife: ‘But what if she comes to you, you know, after you see her body this morning? What will you do then?’
‘Well, I won’t be telling you or anyone else about it,’ I spat.
‘God, you still believe in it, don’t you?’ he laughed. Then, all serious: ‘Just make sure you don’t start spouting off about spirits again. That whole thing was a real fucking embarrassment. For all of us.’
‘Like I said, nothing to see here.’
‘Good. Give me two minutes and I’ll drive you over. I haven’t had a decent show in weeks and, as it’s on our doorstep, well … you never know.’
‘Don’t worry Fint, I could use the walk …’
‘Two minutes …’
That was Fintan these days, walking, talking, plotting faster than ever. No time to take ‘no’ for an answer; feeling real heat. God knows what he’d promised to secure promotion to Chief Crime Reporter at the Sunday News. But now he had to deliver, scoop after scoop. ‘Exclusives’ were his crack fix. The pimps on his news desk knew just how to keep him hooked, hungry and hounded so that he’d do anything for the next hit.
What a time to suffer his first barren patch. I sensed every fibre of him rattling, like a desperate junkie. Random parts of his body had taken to pulsating, hinting at imminent combustion; that vein on his left temple, his cheek muscles, a restless right foot.
‘You’re only as good as your next story,’ he’d started to joke, which is why I felt confused right now. The murder of a street hooker – no matter how spectacularly blood-curdling – would never make it into Britain’s bestselling weekly. The Sunday News revelled in its own cheerful, saucy-seaside-postcard venality, boasting a weekly roll call of randy vicars, love-rat footballers, showbiz/royal tittle-tattle, and bingo. Had this victim been a high-class call girl with a black book of celebrity clients, I’d understand his enthusiasm.
I had to assume he was sizing it up purely on spec, out of sheer desperation. And a desperate Fintan spelt atrocious tabloid capers. Last time, it nearly cost me my job. And my life.
‘Come on,’ he barked from the front door of our little rented house in North London. His pallid head protruded from an oversized, crumpled brown mac, bringing to mind a bottle sticking out of a drunk’s paper bag. He smelled like one too.
‘Jesus, you look rougher than a knacker’s arse crack,’ I said.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he frowned, aggrieved that such a thing could ever bedevil his conscience-light mind.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ he snapped, so I backed off.
He aimed a key at a spanking new red car, which shot back a wink and a robotic whistle.
‘Woah, what is this?’
‘Chief Crime gets a company car. The new Mondeo. Two litre. Sixteen clicks. Fresh off the forecourt.’
‘Wow, did you pick the colour?’
‘Yeah. Hot Rod red. Pretty striking, eh?’
‘Had they ran out of Baboon Arse scarlet then? Jesus, they’ll be able to spot you from space. How will you go incognito on some council estate in this? You’ll stand out like a London bus.’
‘Why are you so begrudging … Jesus. Get in, it’s unlocked.’
He beamed, his restless hands unsure what to show off next.
‘It’s got a built-in car phone. A CD player. Airbags.’
‘And you drove home in this last night?’
‘I know nearly every senior cop in London, Donal. If I get bagged, I just have to make a phone call.’
‘It’s not you I’m worried about. You could barely walk you were so hammered.’
‘I probably still am. Now, do you want a lift or not?’
‘Can we try out those airbags?’
‘They’re for when you crash, you bollocks. They pop out on impact.’
‘Oh, right,’ I smiled, gratified by his low aggravation threshold these days, ‘they should have put some on the front as well.’
‘What?’ he growled.
‘You know, so next time you’re driving around, pissed out of your mind, you don’t pulverise some poor fucker.’
We set off in silence along Drayton Park, turning right onto Gillespie Road. Everything I saw reinforced the absurdity of a vice hotspot nestling in this white, middle-class quarter of London.
Even on a Saturday morning, city types thrusted towards Arsenal tube station, all dreaming of that property upgrade to nearby Islington – two miles up the hill, two hundred grand up the housing ladder.
Along Gillespie Road, slim ‘yummy mummies’ yanked precocious blonde toddlers out of vast 50 grand jeeps.
Even ropey old Blackstock Road, with its tumbledown newsagents, plastic-appointed greasy spoons and sketchy boozers seemed a world away from crack houses, pimps ’n’ hoes.
We turned right into Brownswood Road and a scatter of Rover Metro Panda cars. Through twitching blue crime-scene tape, a sprightly forensic tent glared fiercely white, sucking all the pale sunshine out of the sky.
‘Oh dear,’ said Fintan, ‘The guts gazebo. It must be bad.’
Beyond the marquee of misery and more fluttering tape, tired parents dragged their nosy kids away, incapable of even beginning to explain what had probably gone on here.
‘All part of their London education,’ quipped Fintan.
‘I couldn’t imagine bringing up kids in a big city,’ I said, ‘So much madness to explain. Mam and Da never had to warn us about paedophiles or nutcases.’
‘No, they sent us to be educated by them instead.’
‘How is Da?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I keep having these weird dreams about him. I don’t know. I’m starting to wonder if something’s wrong.’
‘You need to lay off the sauce for a while, Donal. He sounds his usual self to me. Come on,’ he said, opening the driver’s door, ‘it’s bad manners to keep a lady waiting.’
We walked towards the crime scene ghouls gathered at the tape. The streets around us groaned with elegant three-storey Victorian homes peering out over tree-lined pavements. You’d expect to score nothing more toxic here than a slice of Victoria Sponge.
‘I can understand why there’s a red-light district in King’s Cross,’ I said, ‘It’s busy and it’s a dump. But this looks like a nice, local neighbourhood. The roads don’t go anywhere! They’re all cul-de-sacs. How does a vice trade flourish here?’
‘The council put up metal gates at the end of these roads a few years back. They figured that forcing punters to perform a series of tricky three-point turns would put them off. But the punters still come here because the girls never left.’
‘Because crack is easy to source locally.’
‘I’m told it’s a “one hit and you’re hooked” kind of drug. A pimp finds a vulnerable girl, gives it to her for nothing for a few weeks. Then, when she’s addicted, tells her he’s been keeping score and she owes him two grand. They take her out to “work”, beat the shit out of her if she resists or tries to escape. Most of the girls don’t bother. They can’t run away from the crack.’
‘Where do they, you know, do the business?’
‘They get the punters to drive them round the back of Texas Home Base up Green Lanes, get this, because it doesn’t have CCTV. They don’t give a shit about their own safety, just getting the next hit. If they emerge unscathed with their £15, they get the punter to drop them off at one of the local crack houses. A 500-milligram rock, funnily enough, costs £15 and lasts between 30 and 50 minutes. An hour later they’re rattling and desperate to avoid the comedown. And the shits. Until you score again, you’ve no control over your bowels. It’s a grim scene.’
‘A grim scene about which you seem remarkably knowledgeable …’
He snorted glumly.
‘Last year I got a tip that the wife of some hotshot city broker was hooked and working out of one of those DSS hostels opposite Finsbury Park. The source is a good one so I checked it out. I didn’t find her but I came across lawyers, plumbers, bankers, cops, all sorts, popping in and out of these crack houses. Some of the wealthier guys would spend four or five thousand on two-day benders, smoking their rocks and doing all sorts of sick shit to the girls. Take crack and you lose all control. Honestly, it makes Scarface look like The Muppet Show. If they really want to educate kids about drugs, they should take them to a crack house. No water, heating, toilets, food, furniture. Just blood-stained sofas and sheets nailed over the windows.
‘Anyway, you better get inside that tent before the circus leaves town.’
I weighed up the crime-scene tape and elected to take the manly route over the top. After all, this was my crime scene now.
I lofted my left leg towards the tape just as a WPC approached.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ she demanded.
Her scent made something cartwheel inside my chest, knocking me off my stride, quite literally. I realised now that the tape was higher than I’d thought and struggled to get my left foot over the top.
‘DC Lynch,’ I warbled, my standing right foot now buckling under the strain, so that my upper body jerked about violently, like some sort of sick Ian Curtis tribute. ‘From the Cold Case Unit,’ I somehow managed to add between lurches as my prodding left foot failed to locate terra firma crime side of the tape.
‘That looks a little awkward,’ she said, her worried eyes moving down to the piano wire-taut tape just as it flicked up into my crotch, ‘and a little uncomfortable.’
‘It’s fine,’ I gasped, yanking the tape down with my right hand and springing off my right foot onto my left.
One leg over.
‘Perfectly fine,’ I panted, leaning forward now to swing my right leg over the tape behind me. But no matter how far forward I lurched, my right foot refused to clear this damned tape which, at the very second she looked down at it again, sprang back up into my balls.
‘Really, it’s no trouble,’ she giggled, mercifully lowering my polythene nemesis.