The Burying Place Read online

  The Burying Place

  Vicky Jones

  Claire Hackney

  Copyright © 2020 by Vicky Jones

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Acknowledgments

  Special mention to Mark Romain for all the police procedural advice and input.

  Check out his books HERE.

  Visit his website:

  https://www.markromain.com/

  Contents

  About Vicky Jones

  About Claire Hackney

  Join in!

  Also in the DI Rachel Morrison series

  Also in the DI Rachel Morrison series

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  Also by Vicky Jones and Claire Hackney

  Also by Vicky Jones

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  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

  Epilogue

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  Acknowledgments

  Our Team

  About Vicky Jones

  Vicky Jones was born in Essex, England. She is an author and singer-songwriter, with numerous examples of her work on iTunes and YouTube. At 20 years old she entered the Royal Navy. After leaving the Navy realising she was drifting through life with no sense of direction, she wrote a bucket list of 300 things to achieve which took her traveling, facing her fears and going for her dreams. At the time of printing, she is two-thirds of the way through her bucket list.

  One item on her list was to write a song for a cause. Her anti-bullying track called “House of Cards” is now on iTunes to download.

  Writing a novel was on her bucket list, and through a chance writing competition at her local writing group, the idea for Meet Me At 10 was born. Vicky hopes she can change hearts and minds due to some of the gritty themes of the book.

  Vicky is a keen traveler, stemming from her days traveling the world in the Royal Navy, and has visited around 50 countries so far. She has also graduated from The Open University after studying part time for her degree in psychology and criminology—another bucket list tick! She is currently writing a book about her bucket list adventures, entitled ‘Project Me, Project You’, alongside planning and writing more fiction books and book marketing guides for self-published authors.

  She now lives in Cheshire, splitting her time between there and visiting her family and friends back in Essex.

  For more information on upcoming book releases, to tell us what you think of the books, or just to say hi, click on the icons below:

  About Claire Hackney

  Claire Hackney is a former English Literature, Drama and Media Studies teacher who, after attending a local writing group with Vicky and writing several of her own short stories over the years, has now decided to focus her career on full-time novel writing.

  She is an avid historian and has thoroughly enjoyed researching different aspects of the 1950s for the ‘Shona Jackson’ trilogy of novels.

  Claire is very much looking forward getting started on the many future writing projects she and Vicky have in the pipeline, including the ‘DI Rachel Morrison’ thriller series and several standalone novels.

  For more information on upcoming book releases, to tell us what you think of the books, or just to say hi, click on the icons below:

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  We’d love to invite you to join in with our ongoing adventures. In our newsletter, you will receive regular behind-the-scenes updates, beta reading opportunities, giveaways and much, much more!

  Simply click on the link below and enter your email address so we know where to send your newsletter:

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  Also in the DI Rachel Morrison series

  Book 2: We Don’t Speak About Mollie

  What if you were told you’d killed your little sister… but had no memory of it? Order NOW.

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  Book 3: Wolves

  Would you ruin your chances of a normal life… to save others?

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  Meet Me At 10

  Four lives inextricably linked. Will tragic events part them forever? Shona Jackson is on the run again, fleeing Mississippi and the town she’d called home. Arriving in Alabama, to continue her journey to safety, she convinces Jeffrey Ellis, the wealthy co-owner of a machinery plant, to give her a job. But when Chloe Bruce returns from college and is introduced to the workforce, there are devastating consequences for all those involved. Read NOW.

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  The Beach House

  New town. New life. Old enemies. With the past and present colliding and threatening their future together, can Shona protect her new life and the lives of those closest to her? Read NOW.

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  Bucket List Book 1: Project Me, Project You

  “Writing this book changed my life. Reading it could change yours.” Back in 2011, suffering depression after leaving the Royal Navy, author and songwriter Vicky Jones embarked upon a life-changing bucket list, including 300 things to tick off over the course of the next decade of her life. This is the story of how this list came about, how it has helped her combat her depression, and how it can help you too. Read NOW.

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  Just about to read The Burying Place?

  Want to know the backstory of the three mysterious characters we meet in the lighthouse?

  Click HERE for your FREE digital copy of the prequel to The Burying Place, to find out more about The Nurse, The Teacher and The Gardener.

  The Burying Place

  Chapter 1

  “Don’t fuck this up, Rachel,” Superintendent Elaine Hargreaves warned as she walked up towards her senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Rachel Morrison. She brushed off a piece of lint caught in the crown badge on her epaulette and straightened her black and white checked cravat. The atmosphere in the cramped room was getting tenser by the second, as the swathes of news reporters clamoured for the prized seats nearest the front. A long table had been put against the wall near the back door to the room and behind it stood four chairs waiting to be occupied. Four glasses of water sat next to four long, thin microphone stands being tested by a technician. The news reporters chatted to each other, while each camera crew with them adjusted their camera settings and checked their flashes were ready.

  “No, ma’am, of course not,” Rachel replied, taking a sip from her takeaway coffee. Now in her late thirties, she had been a detective for nearly ten years, and press conferences were not her favourite part of the job. She swept a lock of long, dark brown hair away from her brow and smoothed down the front of her smart na
vy blue slim-fit trouser suit. “Cornwall’s finest in this morning, I see, ma’am?”

  “Not just the locals. National news are here as well. Look.” Hargreaves nodded in the direction of a group of reporters who had pulled rank and sat in the front row, much to the annoyance of the tutting group from the Falmouth Packet. “Same old vultures, looking for their front-page headline,” Hargreaves added, pursing her lips and scanning her ice-blue eyes across the room. She was in her early fifties, well built, with a mop of short dark, almost black hair, slightly curly on the top. Squinting as a flash went off in her direction, reflecting against the shiny silver buttons on her police uniform, Hargreaves turned back to face Rachel, her expression set hard. “You need to get results on this one, ASAP. I’m getting enough shit over normal people disappearing off the face of the earth as it is, without rich widows going missing now too.”

  “Understood, ma’am. Once we get the press conference out of the way we can get cracking. That’s the daughter over there. Amanda. She seems in shock still.”

  Rachel nodded towards a young, brown-haired girl, around twenty-four years old, who had just walked in through the back room door. She was around five feet five tall and wearing a fitted purple hoodie and blue stonewashed jeans. She sat down in the middle left chair and took a sip of water. Eyes lowered, she looked around the room and breathed in deeply. Taking a seat next to Amanda at the long table flanked by the reporters and a throng of crew from Cornwall Live was another girl, of similar age, slightly smaller build and wearing a neatly pressed navy blue shirt and smart black trousers. She wore her light brown hair tied back in a tight ponytail and had large horn-rimmed glasses perched on her long beaky nose.

  “No other family?” Hargreaves remarked, noticing the panel was sparse.

  “Just an uncle. Father died ten years ago. That’s her friend.” Rachel checked her notepad. “Poppy.”

  Moments after Amanda whispered in Poppy’s ear, Poppy reached down into her handbag and pulled out a small packet of tissues. Handing her one, her friend draped a comforting arm around Amanda as she dabbed at her eyes.

  “Right, well, looks like we’re good to go,” Hargreaves said, catching the nod from the communications officer. A uniformed police constable sat on the seat next to Poppy. “Results, DI Morrison. That’s what I want.” Hargreaves flashed Rachel a sharp stare before walking away, leaving Rachel to take occupancy of the last remaining seat at the table.

  “Diana Walker, from the Kynance Cove area of Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, has been missing for four days now, so it’s safe to say everyone who knows her and cares for her is very concerned for her wellbeing. Diana is fifty-nine years old, average height, slim build, with shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen leaving her home on the morning of Thursday, April eleventh. Her disappearance is totally out of character and nobody has heard from her since. She hasn’t used her phone or her bank cards. We are appealing to you to help us with our enquiries as every moment Diana is missing is causing heartache to her only daughter, sat next to me here.”

  Rachel looked over at Amanda, who licked her lips and opened her mouth to speak. As she did so a haze of camera flashes made her recoil. Regaining her composure after a hand squeeze from Poppy, Amanda began her speech, her hoarse voice barely above a whisper.

  “My name is Amanda Walker. My mother has been missing for four days now. Apart from Poppy here, she's all I have in the world.” She paused to hold up a photograph of her mother to the cameras, which clicked and flashed as she continued after dabbing her eyes with the same scrunched up tissue from before. “Please, if you know anything about where she may be, if you think you might have seen her or know anything at all, please call the police.”

  Amanda looked sideways at Rachel, who smiled. Rachel continued the address to the camera. After reading out the essentials of how to contact the police with information, she wrapped up the press conference and thanked everyone for attending.

  “You did really well. That was so tough,” Poppy said, hugging Amanda and clasping her hands in hers as the reporters started to leave the room. “We’ll find her, I promise.”

  “Well done, Amanda. I know that can’t have been easy,” Rachel chipped in, walking up next to them. “But hopefully we can get some good leads now to find your mum.”

  Amanda forced back a weary smile. “Thank you, detective. I can’t believe nobody knows anything. Someone must have seen her or know where she is.”

  Rachel nodded and rested a hand on Amanda’s shoulder. “We’re checking everything. Maybe Poppy here could take you home and sit with you for a while? I promise I’ll call you if there are any developments.”

  Poppy rubbed Amanda’s shoulder and smiled. “Of course I will. I’ll nip out to the library later too. My boss has let me use the photocopier so I can print out some more posters of your mum. Maybe we can pin them up around town later?” She paused. “If you feel up to it, that is?”

  “You’re such a good friend, Poppy. What would I do without you?” Amanda replied, squeezing her hand.

  Rachel smiled. The constable from the table sidled up behind her.

  “That’s OK. I obviously caught the boss on a good day,” Poppy joked.

  After seeing them off, Rachel turned to the constable. “Michelle, what did Hargreaves say? Did we impress?”

  “You mean not ‘fuck it up’?” PC Michelle Barlow replied, grinning and hooking the thumb of one hand on her utility belt. Her other held her police issue Sillitoe striped bowler hat. She had just turned thirty, and had long reddish-brown hair tied up in a neat bun at the back of her head. They began walking towards the door out of the appeal room and down the flagstone steps to the main entrance. “She’s doing that thing where she’s happy but won’t let her haggard old brick-face show it.”

  “I’ll take that for now. Can you drive us back? I need to make a few calls on the way.” Rachel tossed over the keys to Michelle.

  “Sure.”

  After Rachel had made the last of her routine calls to local bus and train stations to ask them to be on the lookout, she sat back in her seat and exhaled at length.

  “So, is it a disappearance then? Or something more sinister, do you think?” Michelle asked, turning from the car park onto the road back to Lizard.

  “Not sure yet. I can’t see it being linked to the other disappearances around here though. She’s nothing like those others. A doctor, a teacher, and a businesswoman. Now a rich widow? What kind of kidnapper has an m.o. that covers that wide a spread of individuals?” Rachel replied. She began drumming her fingers on the inside of the door.

  “Hmmm…I know. It’s different, this latest one, but somehow the same. All disappeared without a trace. But the town will want answers, so we need to get right on this.”

  “Who’s the SIO here?” Rachel said with a smile.

  “Sorry, boss. Just got a bit excited there, didn’t I? Guess the first coffee’s on me now, huh?”

  Rachel crossed the large, bustling open plan area that made up the station’s main CID office to a row of partitioned offices at the far end. These cubbyholes housed the station’s various DIs and their immediate boss, DCI Parker. After sitting down at her cluttered desk, Rachel began flicking through her notebook. Michelle had continued on over to the small adjoining kitchenette to make good on her promise. Minutes later, she stood at Rachel’s desk holding two mugs of coffee.

  “We’ve got to start talking to people around town on this one, Shell. Something doesn’t feel right about it, and Hargreaves is up my arse already to get it boxed off,” Rachel said, taking a mug from Michelle and blowing the steam off it. As if mentioning her name had conjured her up from thin air, Superintendent Hargreaves marched over to Rachel’s office, her foul mood as obvious as usual.

  “DI Morrison, my office. Now.”

  “That woman needs to get laid,” Michelle muttered before returning to her own desk.

  Once inside the office, Rachel took up the last remaining vacant
seat. Seated around her were the station’s other detective inspectors and DCI Parker. There was also the uniformed chief inspector of operations and all the shift inspectors, apart from a couple who were either doing night duty or on leave. Rachel groaned inwardly. She had forgotten about the weekly meeting, in which all the station’s senior supervisors met to discuss crime trends and statistics, performance issues and any high profile cases that might require resources allocated to them.

  Hargreaves sat in her brown leather chair behind her desk. “Right, everyone, welcome. DCI Parker, you and your team start us off, please.”

  Rachel zoned out while DCI Parker and the Ops Chief Inspector discussed budgets, crime trends and the allocation of resources, after which the shift inspectors gave their input on the latest critical incidents they had dealt with. She half-heartedly listened to DI James Cooper, the head of proactive crime, spout out a load of blarney about how the units under his command, the robbery, crime and drug squads, were all meeting their quota for arrests and stop and search, and executing search warrants at known drug addresses and making respectable seizures of Class A, B and C drugs. She listened to DI Thomas whinge about the various personnel issues he had to contend with on the units under his purview. Rachel felt some sympathy; the Crime Management Unit and Telephone Reporting Bureau were mainly staffed by officers on restricted duties due to illness or injury, those who had been gated and were forbidden to meet the public because of ongoing complaints, and part timers. At least DI Thomas had the Divisional Intelligence Unit under his command, so he was able to brag about their successes.