Sneak Peek - Upcoming Crime Thriller - Part 1
An advanced snippet
Chapter 1 (excerpt 1)
Exeter
1993
Standing outside the cordon of crime-scene tape, Detective Constable Spiller found himself looking away from the devastated corpse.
It was just after three o’clock in the morning and cold. Spiller shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets and forced himself to stare at the grim mass of blood and flesh that had once made up a fellow human. Lying facedown on the road, the man was naked, his body scored by ragged wounds and spattered with dried blood. Aside from the crimson stains, the man’s skin was pale and waxy, painted yellowish-white by the powerful lights of the forensic team.
The scene was made all the more surreal by its surroundings. Briar Crescent was an ordinary residential street on the outskirts of the city. There were semi-detached houses on either side of the road, all with small front gardens. It looked like a good place to live. Quiet. Safe.
A nice neighbourhood, Spiller decided. Until now.
He watched the white-suited Scene of Crime Officers stepping around the corpse. They worked in near silence, their movements careful and precise as if choreographed. Rajiv Ahmad, the newly appointed SOCO Team Manager, was in charge, and he ran a tight ship.
The March night air nipped Spiller’s cheeks, but the SOCOs seemed immune to the cold. They were diligent in their allotted tasks, hunching over the body or kneeling on the tarmac, retrieving, recording and bagging every piece of trace evidence. No spot of blood was too small, no centimetre of ground went unexamined, and no scrap of litter was considered insignificant. There was a quiet dignity to the way they worked, treating the body with respect at all times.
Quite right, Spiller thought. The victim was somebody’s son, and that mattered more than haste.
The crime-scene photographer crouched, his camera held up to his eye. For a split second the flashgun’s harsh light splashed over the scene, throwing every detail into sharp relief, and Spiller tried hard not to flinch.
He closed his eyes, but the flash’s green afterglow remained, the grizzly vision of the broken body etched into his mind’s eye. Spiller’s heart rate soared, the rush of blood hissing in his ears. Breathe, he told himself, exhaling slowly, bringing his pulse back under control.
Beside him, someone chuckled, and Spiller opened his eyes. He hadn’t heard anyone approach, but Detective Sergeant Terry Gray stood close by, regarding him with a wry smile.
A recent addition to Exeter CID, DS Gray was a replacement for Paddy Reilly, but the two men could scarcely have been more different. Reilly had been a maverick, a man who flew by the seat of his pants, but Gray was steady and stoic, a career copper to the core. The oldest member of the team, Gray exuded a quiet confidence. He was a pro, his dark suits immaculate, his shirts ironed, his understated ties neatly knotted. He wore his hair short, combed into a side parting, and his moustache might’ve been trimmed with the aid of a ruler.
“Are you all right there, Tim?” Gray said. “You don’t need to step away for a minute, do you?”
Spiller shook his head. “I’ve seen worse.”
Gray didn’t reply. He simply stood at Spiller’s side, joining him in frank observation of the scene.
“We picked hell of a night to be on call,” Spiller went on. “Hell of a night.”
“Par for the course.”
Not around here, it isn’t, Spiller thought. Nothing like this.
“Did you get much out of the driver?” Gray asked.
“Not a lot. Name of David Ratcliffe. He was driving home to his house on the next street, Laburnum Road, when he saw the body. That was just after one o’clock. He pulled up sharp and went for help, but at that time of night he didn’t have much luck. He had to knock on three doors before anyone answered.”
“You did better than me,” Gray said. “When I got here, the man wouldn’t say a word. Didn’t even give me his name. He was white as a sheet.”
“He’d just had the fright of his life.”
Spiller put himself in Ratcliffe’s shoes, picturing the scene, the moment when the headlights had landed on the twisted corpse in the middle of the road. A nightmare, all the worse because it had been so close to home. Ratcliffe’s car, a dark green Audi 80, was still where he’d left it, parked askew, one wheel on the kerb. Spiller hadn’t had a chance to look at the car yet. Gray had been the first detective on the on the scene, and he’d cordoned off the area before Spiller arrived.
“You were quick off the mark tonight,” Spiller said. “Not much left for me to do.”
“I don’t hang about.”
Spiller inclined his head in acknowledgement. He’d arrived to find everything in hand, a couple of uniformed officers standing by to guard the scene. The SOCOs arrived soon afterward. Gray knew how to get things done.
“I had a call on the car radio just now,” Gray went on. “Bri is on his way.”
“I thought he might be.”
Gray sent him an inquiring look. “Does your DCI normally turn up at crime scenes in the early hours?”
“Not always, but DCI Wendell doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty.”
“Fair play,” Gray said. “But he shouldn’t have to turn out. We’re short-staffed. We need another DI; someone who’s a bit more—”
Gray cut himself short, his attention on the SOCOs. “Hello. Could be something.”
Spiller followed his gaze, but Gray’s implied criticism of the team rankled. He could only have been talking about Ollie Nelson, Exeter’s sole Detective Inspector, and that wasn’t fair; the man wasn’t there to defend himself. But Spiller didn’t have time to dwell on it. Rajiv Ahmad was heading toward them, pulling down his face mask as he walked. As soon as he was close enough, Ahmad said, “Before you ask, there’s no ID and no weapon.”
That’s the end of the excerpt, and I hope you enjoyed it.
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