Flowers for the Dead Read online

  Barbara Copperthwaite is a national journalist with over twenty years' experience, including as an editor of several UK publications. Her debut novel, Invisible, was an Amazon best seller.

  She was raised in the seaside town of Skegness, Lincolnshire, which is where she became a bookworm and lover of the written word.

  Her fascination with crime began when she briefly worked in a men’s maximum security prison, before a brief stint as cabin crew… It was a circuitous route to journalism, but she got there eventually.

  Barbara now lives in Birmingham.

  ALSO BY BARBARA COPPERTHWAITE

  Invisible

  PRAISE FOR

  ‘INVISIBLE’

  "Dark, gripping, twisted - we loved it!" Real People

  "Totally gripping, and scarily believable. One of the most assured debuts of the year" Bella

  "This psychological thriller will stay with you for a long time after you've put it down" Crime Confidential

  FLOWERS

  for the

  DEAD

  BARBARA

  COPPERTHWAITE

  Copyright 2015 by Barbara Copperthwaite

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  For mom, my best friend, ideas sounding board and fellow plotter

  CHAPTER ONE

  ~ Daffodils ~

  Unrequited Love

  PRESENT DAY

  Breathing, feet, and baseline pound together as one as Julie reaches the end of the cul-de-sac and jogs onto the scrubland. The music is already loud but Lost and Not Found is her favourite Chase and Status tune so she fumbles for the volume and pushes it up further, even as she urges her legs to go faster, making her jet black ponytail bob up and down like crazy.

  Running is the one thing she can always rely on to relax and invigorate her, although over the last few months she has completely abandoned it. She had needed all her energy to hold on to her sanity instead. This is her first day back running, and although she doesn’t want to push herself too hard she finds the sense of freedom exhilarating.

  It has been a couple of weeks now since anything weird has happened, so clearly the anti-depressants are working. Things hadn’t been the same ever since Julie had been under threat of redundancy at work. The stress of it all had really affected her. She had been tense, angry and forgetful, walking into a room to do the ironing to find it had already been done but had no memory of it; discovering she had already bought more milk when she would have sworn she had run out. Little things, but they had got to her.

  The final straw had come when she had started crying on the train home after a particularly hard day in the office. No, not crying, that implied a few scattered tears she might have been able to hide behind her long hair extensions. This had been a full-on sob-fest, complete with runny nose, which she had been helpless to stop. Mortifying. The worst thing had been her fellow commuters staring resolutely anywhere but at her, praying silently that she would pull herself together.

  The good thing about hitting rock bottom was that it had forced Julie to seek help. She had immediately been signed off work for a month, given medication, and put on the waiting list for counselling. At her GP’s suggestion she had also gone away on an impromptu holiday, booking it on a whim late one night and jetting off first thing the very next morning for a fortnight on the Greek island of Kos.

  There was a slight set back when she had come home yesterday to a load of nettles some idiot had dumped on her porch. Hysteria had bubbled beneath the surface for a moment, as flowers and plants had been a big theme of her forgetfulness for some odd reason. Just as the doctor had taught her though, she had slowed her breathing, concentrating on it hard until the irrational fear passed.

  It had been her doctor’s idea she start running again, too – one of his best. Now, she allows herself to be lost in the pounding music, to free her body to move in time with the beat. This area of scrubland is full of hummocks and holes hidden beneath the long grass, so she has to take care as she runs, watching where she puts her feet. She does not have to concentrate too hard though, knowing them almost off by heart, and she can’t help smiling; she feels lighter than she has in weeks. Already there is a glow of sweat on her dark skin.

  As Julie pushes herself up the steep side of a bank, then flies over the top that abruptly levels out, she startles at a sudden movement. Her heart leaps up, thudding against her ribcage momentarily, then she swears in annoyance as she realises it was just a rabbit that was even more scared of her than she had been by it. She watches its pure white tail bobbing up and down then disappearing into heavy undergrowth at the side of the path.

  A blur of movement on the side of her vision. Julie has barely begun to turn her head when pain explodes across her windpipe and she is gasping, wheezing, struggling to gulp in rapid, shallow breaths. What the hell has happened?

  Her arms windmill as she stumbles from side to side, clawing at her throat and turning desperately this way and that to fight the panic, to stop the terrible pain, to get oxygen into her lungs.

  Thank God, thank God, there is a man standing behind her, perhaps he can help.

  Her bulging brown eyes grow wider as she silently pleads with him, trying to convey the urgency. She can’t breathe. Not enough air is getting into her body, the rasping loud, the pain unimaginable against her flattened windpipe.

  He simply stands still, taking in the sight, before finally realising he needs to act. He drops the large stick he was holding as if ready to throw for a dog, and takes a step towards her.

  “Help me!” Julie wants to say. “Please, help me.”

  But nothing will come but the desperate sound of her struggling breathing. Her lungs burn with effort, and her vision is blackening around the edge. Legs wobbly and weakening as she fights the urge to sink to her knees

  “Don’t worry, I’ll make it better,” he says, as though in reply to her silent plea. “I’ve got you, I’ve always got you. I’ll make it all go away.”

  His voice is soft, soothing, and even in her panic she feels better.

  Yes, yes, help me! Quickly…

  “I’ll make it all better,” he croons. Takes another step, wrapping one arm around her as tight as a vice so that her own arms are trapped by her sides, unable to flutter around her neck trying to help pull in air.

  Holding his body flush against hers, he presses against her gently but forcefully, like a lover. His hands twist into her long, dark ponytail and pull, exposing her throat, angling her face up towards his so that he gazes down at her.

  Julie has no real strength left now. Fingers twitch, trying to hold onto the life slipping from her grasp. Her heart pounds as if hammering to get out and be allowed to breathe by itself. Mouth gaping, working ceaselessly. Eyes huge as a deer’s as they gaze up at the stranger, pleading silently for help even as her vision blurs and darkens at the edges.

  Even as she fades, Julie becomes hyper-aware. Somehow knowing that these are her final moments, her mind and body work together to gather up every last sensation, stretching out what little life is left. The stranger’s hands moving down her ponytail, the subtle bounce as his fingers let go of the
curl at the end. The softness of his skin as he slowly caresses her cheek, along her jawline, then down to her neck. The citrus sharp smell of his body wash.

  All the time, his eyes never leave hers. It is a comfort.

  Julie’s legs sag but the stranger is prepared, holding her against him as she swoons. Still she struggles for breath though, even as her noises become weaker, her chest barely trembling.

  “It’s time, my love,” the man soothes. “But don’t worry. I’m here. I won’t leave you, ever.”

  She realises then. Realises that he is not a stranger; that she has seen him before, many times, just on the edge of her vision, just at her fall into dreams. Her arms spasm against her sides, but she has nothing left to fight with.

  Help me, she pleads silently. But this time she is not asking him.

  Fingers caress her neck in feather-light strokes. One more beat of her heart. He seals his mouth over hers and kisses her goodbye. Her mouth sags helplessly open against his, fighting for air, any air she can get, body jerking. A strong hand stretches around her neck, thumb gently pressing on a vein. With a groan of passion he squeezes her already crushed throat.

  Julie is still staring into the man’s eyes as she makes her last exhalation.

  ***

  Adam breathes in deeply, savouring Julie’s final breath. He can taste her in his mouth, feel her entering his lungs, then dispersing into his blood stream until she is pumped around his entire body. Still he holds her against him, relishing the magical moment of death. Finally, he lays her body reverentially on the ground.

  There is one more thing he has to do now. He knows he has to be quick, but it is important to do this right too. After all, this is all for Julie, not him. She had been unhappy and like an injured animal he had had no choice but to put her out of her misery. That is how much he loves her.

  He takes his scalpel from a jacket pocket and nods to himself as he prepares to get to work. He feels good; invigorated, relaxed, a rush like he is flying. He is free, knowing that he is doing the right thing. As the blade bites into flesh, and blood blossoms, he starts humming to himself: Chase and Status’s Lost and Not Found.

  All Adam ever wanted was to make Julie happy. Now, finally, he has. Soon he will be able to go home and tend to his garden; he has been away for far too long.

  ***

  TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO

  There was a floorboard that gave a creak he knew off by heart. Whenever he heard it his heart jumped up painfully and pounded so that he could hear it in his ears, a rushing sound that felt like his head may explode. Even in his sleep he could recognise the sound, eyes flying open. He heard it just then, and instantly tried to make himself very still, tried to pretend to be sleeping, squeezed his eyes tight shut and tried to find the hiding place in his head where, if he concentrated really, really, really hard, he could almost shut out the noise and what it meant.

  ***

  PRESENT DAY

  It is one of those glorious early spring days that make people feel glad to be alive. The sun is shining, cold but bright, and in every direction there are signs of the landscape coming back to life. Trees heavy with sticky buds, green shoots poking through soft brown mud, daffodils swaying in the gentle breeze.

  The body of the young black woman will never come back to life again though. Detective Sergeant Michael Bishop pushes his hands deeper into the pockets of his white paper SOCO onesie and sighs, his breath pluming in front of him in a little cloud that makes him think wistfully of smoking a cigarette. He likes to smoke one when he leaves a crime scene as a sort of reward for seeing yet another terrible image he will never forget. But thanks to various blackmail techniques employed by his surprisingly devious seven-year-old daughter, Daisy, he is trying to quit. He is not happy about it.

  The scene before him will definitely not be putting a smile on his face. The victim lying before him might have been pretty once. Not any more. Not after what the killer has done to her face.

  “Julie Louise Clayton, 32. She lived alone in one of the houses a few streets away in Dragonfly Lane,” reports a uniformed constable. “The body was found an hour ago, at 8am, by a dog walker.”

  Mike looks over at the sixty-something woman standing with her pug dog in her arms, soothing the oblivious creature like a baby while it eagerly sniffs the air and wriggles to get down. She needs the comfort of cuddling it though, despite it smearing mud over her pink Regatta jacket. She looks grey and terrified, and even from this distance he can see she is shaking.

  He would like to go over to talk to her, but this is not his crime scene. He is merely an observer.

  Mike had been chatting to his pal, Detective Chief Inspector Simon Phillips, who heads up Reading CID, when this call had come in. Invited to come along and see his new force – possibly – in action, Mike had jumped at the chance. Now though he feels like a spare part, and jiggles up and down a bit to keep warm, the paper suit rustling gently.

  “Any initial thoughts, Doc?” Simon asks of the pathologist bustling round.

  Doctor Samantha Holliday is a short woman in her mid-thirties, who clearly escapes her cold clinical day job in the warmth of cakes in the evening. The ice blonde nods briskly in reply to Simon’s question, but does not say a word, looking pointedly at Mike who is listening in.

  Mike is not easily missed; he looks like a bear that has decided to give being human a go. The thirty-four-year-old is over six foot three, broad and well built, but with what his daughter calls a ‘cuddly cushion’ belly. The only part of him that is not covered in dark brown hair is his balding head, which seems to be staging some kind of protest against the rest of his body.

  “Doctor Sam Holliday, meet DS Mike Bishop. He’s thinking about transferring to us from the land of the orange tan,” Simon beams. “The only way isn’t Essex, for you, eh, Mike?”

  Cheesy jokes are a speciality of Simon’s, and Mike gives a forced laugh. He isn’t sure about this move from Colchester in Essex, to the Berkshire town of Reading. He could do with a fresh start after a tough couple of years, but would it be too much of an upheaval for his little girl?

  “Good to meet you, Mike,” says Sam, and the pair shake hands, Mike’s hairy paw completely enclosing the pathologist’s mitt. His hand goes straight back into his pocket immediately afterwards, out of habit: it stops the temptation to touch things at crime scenes.

  “Right, well,” Sam continues briskly, “obviously, don’t quote me on any of this until I’ve got the body back and done a full autopsy, but it seems straightforward enough.”

  Straightforward is not a word Mike would apply to this carefully posed scene.

  The woman has been laid out, eyes closed, with her arms across her chest in the traditional pose of a corpse at peace. Her Lycra running clothes are still in place, completely undisturbed. A bunch of daffodils rest on her solar plexus, and more surround her body like a flower aura. It would seem loving, if not for the fact that the killer has left her face a mask of blood and gore by cutting at it until her teeth are exposed in a permanent grin.

  “From the bruising to her neck it’s clear she was strangled. The killer seemed to know exactly where to exert pressure for a quick, efficient kill, so if he hasn’t done this before I’d be bloody amazed. She was hit with something first, across the throat. Something long. I’d hazard either some kind of bat or even that branch over there.”

  Sam points and Michael notices the two-foot-long branch on the ground nearby with a little evidence number beside it. He looks at Sam again and she shrugs.

  “It’s a reach at the moment but it seems to fit the bill so I asked for it to be bagged,” she explains.

  “Good old Doc Holiday is rarely wrong. You have an instinct for death, don’t you, Doc, eh?” guffaws Simon, rolling up onto his toes then back down.

  It’s easy to write Simon off as a complete tit, but Mike knows he runs way deeper than the bad jokes and equally bad dress sense imply. Although he really does have a bewildering penchant for past
el shirts and ties: today he is sporting a pink and baby blue golfing jumper which is normally only seen in sitcoms dating from the nineteen eighties. But the fact is, when Mike’s wife, Mags, had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm after slipping on ice and hitting her head, Simon had been great. You find out who your real friends are when things go horribly wrong in your life, Mike believes, and Simon had been there to listen, support, and help organise practical stuff for him when Mike could barely string a sentence together. Mike would never, ever forget that.

  “The killer cut the lips off with something very sharp,” Sam continues. “They appear to have been removed from the scene, probably as some kind of trophy…”

  Mike lets his gaze drift away across the fields as she talks about the amount of blood caking the victim’s face, about it being impossible to tell right now if the injuries were inflicted before or after death. Mike will not be investigating this murder so has no desire to listen to the gory details.

  Still, his copper brain cannot help whirring.

  This seems an odd place for an opportunistic murder. All right so there is a bit of underbrush here and there to lurk in, but there clearly isn’t much footfall in the area. So either the killer is new to the game and has not managed to hone his skills, which include finding better places to get prey, or…

  …Or this was not opportunistic. He had not wanted any woman, he had wanted this woman and knew that here was where to find her at this time of day.

  So the murder is personal. Very personal.

  The mutilation is clearly a message, as is the posing. What is the killer trying to say?

  Personal can be a good thing. It means the chances of finding the perpetrator are high, while the risk of repeat offending is low.

  But…

  Then there is the openness of the place. On one side the scene is well hidden from view: the steep bank Mike has had to clamber to get here falls away only slightly on this side, but enough to obscure people from view when factoring in the bushes on the crown of the ridge. The other three sides are a different matter though: a clear path runs right and left through the grass, straight and true, and it edges a vast flat field.