Preview
After She’s Gone

by Sheryl Browne

PROLOGUE

‘Oi, you can’t park there!’ a police officer yelled as Matthew mounted the kerb, careering his car haphazardly to a stop on the pavement.

His gut twisting violently inside him, his head reeling, Matthew ignored him, ramming his door open instead to scramble from the car and set off at a run.

‘What the …?’

Vaguely aware of the man giving chase, Matthew kept going, attempting to push past another officer closing in in front of him, only to be caught from behind.

‘Whoa. Come on, mate, you need to get back.’ Taking hold of his arm, the officer behind attempted to steer him away. ‘There’s been an accident up ahead. We need to clear—’

‘Shit, it’s Adams.’ The officer in front intervened.

‘Who?’ The man still hanging on to his arm asked.

‘Detective Inspector Adams,’ the officer in front supplied warily. ‘Let him through.’

Stumbling forwards as the guy behind relaxed his grip, his legs like dead weights beneath him, Matthew forced himself on, bypassing other officers, who now stood respectfully aside.

His wife was with her. Matthew swallowed back a hard knot in his throat. She was crouched over her, holding her impossibly small hand in her own. She didn’t look up. Rebecca kept her gaze focussed on their daughter. His daughter. Matthew felt something break inside him as he took in his baby’s injuries, her broken body, the slow trickle of lifeblood pooling beneath her, staining the drab, grey road crimson.

Please don’t. Matthew prayed hopelessly as he moved closer. Please don’t do this. The world seeming to slow to a stop around him, the use of his legs finally deserting him, Matthew dropped to his knees at the side of the child he’d loved with every fibre of his being ever since he’d first glimpsed her tiny form on the monitor.

‘Hey, Tigerlily,’ he said, his voice cracking as Lily’s eyes fluttered open. Wide blue eyes, once crystal clear with the innocence of childhood, were filled with confusion and pain as she looked pleadingly up at him, silently begging him, her daddy, to fix it. His heart turned over as her lips parted. She wanted to speak. She couldn’t. Please don’t try to speak, baby. Tears he couldn’t hope to hide streaming down his face, Matthew leaned towards her, brushing her blood-matted, beautiful blonde hair gently away from her face. ‘Daddy’s here, darling,’ he choked. ‘It’s going to be just fine.’

Lies. Lies. He screamed inside. It wasn’t going to be fine. It could never be. He couldn’t fix it. How could he let his little girl go knowing he couldn’t? Cradling his baby gently in his arms, Matthew’s heart splintered inside him as he watched her life ebb away.

They were taking her away in an ambulance. What use was an ambulance? Panic engulfing him, Matthew took a faltering step towards it, and stopped. He couldn’t. Couldn’t ride with her, watch as the warmth drained from her body, her baby-soft skin turning blue and cold. Life fucking extinct.

‘Matthew!’ Rebecca called to him as, his chest heaving, Matthew turned away. Terrified of what he might see in her eyes, he couldn’t turn back. This was his fault. He should have been there. He’d promised to drive them to the cinema. He’d known Patrick Sullivan might make good his threat. He should have been there! A potent mixture of grief and rage broiling inside him, Matthew recalled his last encounter with the sadistic piece of scum with sickening clarity. Sullivan’s expression hadn’t altered when he’d informed him his brother had been an unfortunate casualty in a drug bust gone wrong. Matthew had been surprised. Sullivan’s hatred of him went way back since they were kids in school. Guessing he would hold him personally responsible, Matthew had been bracing himself for Sullivan to reach across the table and attack him right there in the prison interview room. Instead, Sullivan had reached casually for a cigarette. Lighting up, he’d glanced down and scratched his forehead slowly with his thumb.

‘How’s that pretty young wife of yours, DI Adams? Pregnant again, isn’t she?’ he’d enquired eventually, blowing smoke circles into the air as he’d looked back at him. ‘Give her my regards, won’t you?’

Sullivan had then leaned forwards, a twisted smirk on his face, his eyes as black as molasses and swimming with pure evil. ‘I would do it myself, but I’m a bit busy … banged up … in here.’

It had been a threat. Innocent to all ears but Matthew’s, it had been a direct threat. And now, still sitting pretty in prison with a cast iron alibi, Sullivan was no doubt congratulating himself on a job well done, imagining that he’d also succeeded in warning Matthew off pursuing him once he got out. Wrong, you bastard.

CHAPTER ONE

Rebecca looked up from her laptop as Matthew dashed into the kitchen, looking as deprived of sleep as when he’d fallen into bed late last night. Noting the dark shadows under his eyes, the perpetual worry that seemed etched into his brow, Rebecca really wished he wouldn’t push himself so hard, as if he alone could make the streets safe. But then, throwing himself into his work was his way of coping with his demons, Rebecca knew.

‘Have you had any more thoughts about Ashley?’ she asked as he grabbed a coffee.

Now probably wasn’t a good time; Matthew had already received an urgent call from his detective sergeant needing him to attend a crime scene on the outskirts of town, but they had to make their decision soon. It wouldn’t be easy. They were both aware of what a profoundly life-changing commitment it would be, the emotional implications of taking on a child who was a stranger to them, despite the family ties. Matthew had only recently learned his sister had ever had a child. Kristen had dropped that bombshell when Matthew had last gone in search of her, hoping to convince her for a third time since he’d found her to go to a rehab centre. He was now blaming himself for not knowing, of course. As if he could have known. Kristen had gone off the rails years ago. Preferring the company of the dubious crowd she was with, she’d moved around, thwarting Matthew’s attempts to find her and help her. They could help Ashley though, couldn’t they? Together? She was older than Lily would have been, but the wounds of their daughter’s loss, just six months ago, were still painfully raw. Might this go some way to helping them heal?

Matthew took a sip of his coffee. ‘Some,’ he said, glancing uncertainly at her, his velvet-brown eyes a kaleidoscope of emotion: his grief, which was always palpable, but which he worked hard at hiding.

Rebecca understood his hesitation. It was a huge decision for both of them. In her mind though, at thirteen years old, if his niece was going to survive her dysfunctional childhood and learn to cope with life, in care was not where she needed to be.

‘You know I’m okay with it, don’t you?’ she reminded him, gently.

Matthew glanced at her again, that same curious expression Rebecca so often saw in his eyes. As if he couldn’t quite grasp why she hadn’t fallen apart after Lily and the subsequent miscarriage. God knew, there were times when Rebecca had felt close. So many times, when her mind played over that fateful second Lily’s hand had slipped from her own; when she would hear the impact, dull, metallic, final. In the bleak, listless weeks that followed the accident, she’d simply ceased wanting to be. Black, empty nothingness was what she’d felt, what she’d craved. Not even wanting Matthew to comfort her, she’d just wanted to curl up on her own in the dark where life couldn’t touch her. She hadn’t let go though. She’d held on, by her fingernails it had seemed sometimes, because she’d realised that the baby growing inside her would need her. For Matthew, too, who had finally reached his own lowest ebb after she miscarried the baby. He’d broken down and wept in her arms. Only once though. He cried until Rebeca had thought his heart would break, but, after that night, when they’d lain together limbs entwined, grieving the loss of Lily and the baby that had given them new hope, it was as if Matthew had shut part of himself away. The part that was emotionally vulnerable.

Knowing that, knowing him, a man who drove himself to work harder when he was hurting, a man determined to fix the hurts of the world when he could never hope to, Rebecca had stayed strong. Aware that Matthew might be the one to fall, somehow, she’d survived. And now, she suspected, but didn’t say for fear of swaying him unfairly, she would stay strong still, this time for Ashley, who clearly desperately needed someone to simply just love her. Rebecca could do that, she was sure.

Watching her studying him, seeing the determination in her eyes, Matthew despaired of himself, his own inability to be as positive as she was. How many women, he wondered, having gone through what Becky had, would still be standing, let alone considering taking on a child she didn’t know? A child abandoned by her own mother, who preferred the company of the bottle. He still couldn’t believe he’d had no inkling of his niece’s existence. That she’d been in care for most of her life. He wanted to take Ashley. Who else was there, if not him? The truth was, though, he was scared. Scared for himself – how could he not see Lily every time his eyes fell on another young girl wandering around the house? More scared, though, for Becky. Could she cope? Truly? Seeing another child in Lily’s place?

Instantly assaulted by the flashback he tried constantly to block out, Matthew closed his eyes, seeing again with absolute clarity the quiet pleading in Lily’s. He should have been there. At home to take them to the cinema, as he’d promised, not poring over some case that would probably never be solved. Instead, even knowing in his gut that that bastard Patrick Sullivan might make good his threats, he’d been late.

How? he asked himself, swallowing back the pain and anger that burned steadily inside him. How could any God in heaven be so cruel as to snatch away the life of a child in front of her mother’s eyes? Rebecca had never known about Sullivan. Thinking the knowledge that someone had deliberately run into her child might destroy her and with no evidence against the piece of scum, Matthew had kept the information from her. As far as Rebecca knew it was a hit-and-run, assailant unknown. Matthew knew, though, and he’d made himself a promise the day he’d watched his daughter’s life slip away that one way or another Sullivan was going to pay.

Tugging in a tight breath, Matthew buried the memory, which was the only way he knew how to cope with it, then smiled as Rebecca, ever intuitive of his mood, walked across to him.

‘Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Detective Adams?’ she said, hooking her arms around his neck and gazing knowingly up at him.

‘Frequently.’ Matthew swallowed. She did tell him, often, but he wasn’t sure how she could still be in love with a man who hadn’t been there when she’d needed him and then emotionally missing for months thereafter.

‘So? What about Ashley?’ she urged him.

Still, Matthew was hesitant. But then, what kind of a future would the girl have if they didn’t take her? Chances were, coming out of care, she’d end up following in her mother’s footsteps, abusing alcohol, homeless, spending her nights on canal embankments, in subways. Days begging funds to fuel her addiction … No, he couldn’t let that happen. Then there was Becky. She must feel so lonely, rattling around this place on her own. Finally moving into the barn conversion, renovated with a family in mind, only to lose their children, had been the cruellest twist of all. He’d thought he’d been doing the right thing investing some of his father’s insurance pay-out in a pretty Buckinghamshire property not too far outside of London. It had been a mistake. The place was too isolated, half of it still a building site since the builders had gone bust, no neighbours – nor were there likely to be any in the foreseeable future, which could only exacerbate Becky’s isolation.

‘I’ll make some calls today.’ He finally made a decision and prayed it was the right one.

Rebecca blinked, surprised.

‘Really?’ she asked, her wide aquamarine eyes peppered with that same haunting vulnerability Matthew had seen when they’d lost Lily, when she’d miscarried the baby she’d so desperately wanted.

‘As soon as I’ve attended this call-out, I promise.’ Was it possible she really did want this? That in some ‘God-moves-in-mysterious-ways’ way it might help fill the void in their lives? Matthew hoped so. Hoped that they were sufficiently prepared to deal with the baggage that would surely come with a teenager starved of natural parental affection.

‘Unless you get side-tracked, of course,’ she said, giving him a reproachful look.

As she had every right to, because he did get side-tracked, often. Not this time he wouldn’t. ‘I’ll make the calls,’ Matthew assured her, notching her chin up with his forefinger and locking his gaze firmly on hers.

Raising her eyebrows, Rebecca smiled amusedly. ‘Ooh, masterful,’ she teased.

‘I’ll ring you as soon as I know anything.’ Matthew circled her waist, drawing her closer. ‘And if it’s masterful you want, I think I can manage that too.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Rebecca held his gaze. ‘Does this mean I’m on a promise, Detective Inspector?’

‘Definitely.’ Matthew’s mouth curved into a smile. If there was anything to thank God for, he supposed it was that, after months of living in their own private hell, lying side by side yet poles apart in the bedroom – mainly because of the ghosts that relentlessly came to haunt him, the guilt – they’d at last found each other again.

‘You need to go.’ Rebecca stood on tiptoes, her infinitely kissable, pillow-soft lips brushing his, leaving Matthew wondering if he couldn’t delay another five minutes, ten possibly? Closing his eyes, he leaned in to her kiss and cursed as his phone beeped again in his pocket.

‘Sorry, I, er … ’ Shrugging apologetically, he reached for it.

‘Duty calls, I know.’ Rebecca sighed pseudo-despairingly and rolled her eyes. ‘Go,’ she urged him, ‘before I’m tempted to drag you upstairs and handcuff you to the headboard.’

‘Now there’s a thought.’ Giving her a mischievous wink, Matthew planted a kiss on her forehead.

‘You will remember to ring me, though, won’t you?’ Rebecca asked, reaching to straighten his askew tie.

‘Scout’s honour,’ Matthew assured her as he checked his message. ‘If the manager at the care home is agreeable and we’re both still good with it, we could make an appointment and maybe bring Ashley home. How does that sound?’

‘Like I might definitely be making good my promise with the handcuffs,’ Rebecca assured him, messing up his tie again, as she tugged him towards her to press a firmer kiss on his lips.

‘You’re a manipulator, Mrs Adams.’ Matthew gave her a mock scowl, wishing to God he had been able to be there for her, been able to give all of himself. Matthew wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive himself for that. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the psychiatrist had labelled it. Selfish is what Matthew called it.

‘I know.’ Rebecca trailed a finger down his lapel. ‘And don’t you just love it, Detective Inspector?’

‘Depends on what you have in mind.’ Matthew smiled, glancing again at his beeping phone. His heart sank fast as he read the message from his DS, who’d now arrived at a possible murder scene. A young female, apparently. Possibly a known informant. Matthew’s gut clenched in cold apprehension.

‘Later,’ he said, making sure to keep his smile in place as he turned to head through the open lounge to the front door.

‘Have a good day; keep safe.’ Rebecca followed him. ‘Have you got your inhaler?’ she asked, checking up on him, as she always did. Matthew hated the thing, but he tried not to mind. A radiographer by profession and a worrier by nature, she was bound to remind him, he supposed.

‘Yes, I’ve got my inhaler.’ He pulled open the front door and patted his jacket pocket, indicating it was where it should be. ‘See you later.’

‘I’ll be here. Love—’ you, Rebecca finished, as the door closed behind him.

Rebecca felt it immediately. It was almost palpable, the deafening silence of a house without children. A beautiful house, three-quarters of a mile from the village school, a couple of miles from High Wycombe and access to the motorway, tastefully decorated with rescued pieces and white walls; it was perfect, and empty.

Her bare feet sounded loud on the natural wood floor as she padded across the lounge, debating what she should do before she went to work. She had too much time on her hands. That was the trouble. Time she didn’t particularly want to fill with housework. Perhaps she should consider going full time at the hospital? They could certainly use her with one radiographer off on maternity leave. But then, she’d need to be part-time to make space in her life now for Ashley.

Swallowing, Rebecca hugged her arms about herself and walked across to her laptop. Selecting her photo album, she found the photo they’d requested the care home to send them. Please, please let it work out, she prayed, looking back at the young girl looking yearningly out at her. She wasn’t Lily. Nothing could ever replace their little girl in their hearts. Sometimes, when she was alone, Rebecca was sure she could hear her laughing. Or worse, crying. Heartbreakingly, sometimes she could hear her singing and imagine her gyrating along to some X Factor girl band pop song. Matthew had suggested they move, but Rebecca wasn’t ready to, not yet. She wanted to be reminded, to hold the memories. She also wanted to hold onto the feel of Lily – something she wasn’t quite sure Matthew would understand – the smell of her, that special smell that bonds mother and child together, and which seemed to permeate every pore of the house.

Ashley had never had that bond as far as Rebecca knew. She was alone, on her own in a world she was ill-equipped to ever function in. She was also family. With her ebony hair, brushed to a silken sheen, and almond-shaped eyes the colour of rich cognac, she could almost be Matthew’s child. She was beautiful. Fragile, yet from the set of her jaw, strong, Rebecca sensed. Heaviness settling in her chest, she found herself physically hurting for the girl, who must feel so alone. Poor thing, thirteen years old and already she’d been abandoned, abused and neglected, starved of affection; how heart-breaking was that?

More so for Matthew, who’d tried so hard to find his sister, searching for her in places that most people wouldn’t feel safe. Finally locating her, he’d persuaded her home twice, securing places for her in rehab. Twice she’d left again, her craving for alcohol driving her. Why had she waited until now to tell Matthew she had a daughter, Rebecca wondered? An attempt to shock him into not caring for her possibly, so she would be free to do what she liked? Or was it because Kristen too was hurting from the loss of a child and was somehow trying to reach out to Matthew? They would never know, Rebecca supposed. Most of the time she made little sense, Matthew said. And even having told him that much of her painful past life, Kristen refused to try and change it.

Yet still, Matthew tried, attempting to check up on her, though he, above most people, knew she could only be helped if she wanted to help herself. He was a good man, a man hurting. Rebecca wished he’d share that hurt more with her instead of channelling it into his work. She swallowed back another tight lump in her throat. Then almost shot out of her skin as Matthew, who’d obviously realised there was something he’d forgotten before driving off, shouted, ‘Ditto, always,’ through the letterbox.

Matthew pulled in a tense breath, as he climbed out of his car. ‘Is it Brianna?’ he asked his detective sergeant, who walked towards him from the short alley that led from the back of the Thai restaurant.

‘No official ID yet, but …’ DS Steve Ingram hesitated. ‘It looks like it, yes.’

‘Fuck!’ Matthew grated, knowing what no official ID meant. ‘Right.’ He blew out a sigh and steeled himself to walk back with Steve to see for himself.

Brianna Phillips? Matthew couldn’t believe it. He’d only spoken to her yesterday. Scared witless and refusing to say why, she’d come to him and asked him outright if he could offer her protection in exchange for certain information. Videos, she’d hinted, directed by Patrick scum-of-the-earth Sullivan, Matthew was willing to bet. He’d been out of prison, what, five months? And he was as free as a bird to do what he liked, to whoever he liked, peddling his crap, coercing underage kids to star in those videos. For what he’d done to Lily, the bastard should have been banged up forever. Or, better still, met an excruciatingly painful demise while he was in there.

Parasitic scum. Matthew’s jaw tensed, his lungs tightened, as he tried, and failed, to still the images that played over and over, his child, the light in her eyes fading, his world disintegrating. Again, he recalled the evil intent in Sullivan’s eyes when he’d informed him of his equally sadistic brother’s demise. Heard the words that spilled from the disgusting piece of scum’s mouth. ‘How’s that pretty young wife of yours, DI Adams?’

It had been a threat. Matthew had been sure of it. A threat the murdering psychopath had eventually attempted to have carried out. And Matthew had been able to do nothing about it. The bastard was out now though, wasn’t he, no bars to provide him with an alibi. Not for long, Sullivan. Not for long. If it was the last thing he did, Matthew aimed to make sure Sullivan was taken off the streets.

Dammit. He should have done something more when Brianna had come to him. There was no way he’d have been able to make promises, offer her a safe house, but he should have done something, found her some kind of accommodation, stayed on it, before it came to this. Matthew swallowed again, hard.

‘Visual ID not possible then?’ he asked, tugging his collar loose.

‘Afraid not.’ Steve shot him a wary glance. He didn’t offer details. He didn’t need to. He’d know Matthew would be filling in the blanks. Matthew was, graphically. Closing his eyes, he counted silently. At five, he managed to get a tenuous grip on his emotions.

‘Timing?’ he asked, feeling the abject sense of failure he always did when one of these girls turned up drugged and beaten, raped, or worse.

‘Not sure yet. Last night at a guess,’ Steve offered. ‘The body wasn’t discovered until they opened up shop and, er …’ He stopped and gauged Matthew cautiously again.

‘Put the trash out?’ Matthew finished sardonically.

Steve puffed out a breath and nodded slowly. ‘Pathologist and scene of crime officers are present,’ he went on, professionally following protocol, outwardly calm. Not detached though. Matthew eyed his colleague – a rugby-playing brute of a bloke – and noted the faint odour of vomit sympathetically. Steve was what, twenty-eight? Keen. About to get married. Matthew had met his fiancée, a stunning girl, and judging by the love-struck look on Steve’s face when he’d introduced her, she was enough to keep him content at night. Matthew guessed Steve wouldn’t be looking elsewhere. It was an iron-willed man or woman who didn’t succumb in some way to the seedy world of sex and drugs, though, sometimes getting sucked in, sometimes getting psychologically screwed. Detachment was a requisite part of the job if you wanted to sleep nights. Matthew only wished he could attain it.

Sighing, he braced himself as he headed around to the back of the restaurant. It was her. Matthew noted the bleeding heart tattoo on the girl’s upper arm immediately. Gulping back the sour taste in his mouth, he took in the lifeless, broken body of the teenager in a succession of sordid, stomach-churning snapshots. Face down, her head twisted to one side, she was almost unrecognisable. Her eyes swollen like two overripe plums. Her nose and lips split. Right arm fractured, judging by the impossible angle. One shoe missing. The other a red stiletto that looked brand new. Clothes … in brutal disarray. Matthew glanced away.

Nodding a greeting at one of the SOCOs taking requisite photos of the surrounding area, he noticed a fat bluebottle buzzing over the nondescript grey bin the girl was sprawled in front of. His stomach turning over and a distinct wheeze in his chest, Matthew tried hard not to breathe in the pungent stench of rotting oriental food and dead flesh.

‘I take it this is our crime scene?’ He turned back to the pathologist, who was busy making an external examination of the body.

‘Judging by lividity,’ the pathologist indicated the dark purple discoloration on the underside of the girl’s torso, ‘I’d say, yes.’

Matthew nodded. ‘Any idea of the timeframe?’ he asked, nurturing a faint hope that there might have been witnesses.

‘From the body temperature and degree of rigor mortis, I’d say post mortem interval is about eight hours.’

‘Cause of death?’ He glanced at the deceased girl’s eyes, now grey, opaque and empty, trying to remember what colour they were.

‘Asphyxiation, ligature.’

After suffering what kind of humiliation and terror, Matthew wondered, nausea sweeping over him.

‘Can we rush this one through, Nicky?’ He shrugged hopefully, knowing she was probably backed up.

The woman studied him for a second, and then, ‘I’ll do my best,’ she offered. Obviously, she’d picked up on the hint of desperation Matthew had heard in his own voice.

Matthew nodded his thanks, outwardly trying for composed, inwardly broiling with hot, impotent anger.

‘Anything under the fingernails?’ he asked, praying there might be something they could go on.

‘Looks like they’re clean,’ she said, going back to her painstaking evidence-collecting. ‘Very clean.’ She glanced meaningfully at him again. ‘The autopsy might yield something, but I wouldn’t count on it.’

‘No, nor would I.’ Matthew smiled bitterly, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. God really would have to be in his heaven, wouldn’t he, he thought cynically, for there to be enough DNA present to give him the bastard on a plate. Clearly, the assailant had cleaned up after himself. Clearly also, he’d known he wouldn’t be interrupted, meaning his minions had been on lookout or, possibly, doing his cleaning for him.

The pathologist paused in her bag sealing and vialing and sat back on her haunches. ‘Matthew,’ she asked, ‘are you okay?’

Matthew’s gaze flicked back to her face. Nicky had been the pathologist who’d established cause of death after Lily, and therefore one of the few people who would guess that Matthew was very much not okay; that this kind of crap got to him, more and more every day.

‘Yep, never better.’ He smiled tightly, glossing it over, because it was simply the only way he could get through it. ‘Ring me, will you, Nicky?’

She nodded and went back to her task as he turned away.

‘Sir?’ His DS followed him as Matthew headed back to his car, his stride purposeful, belying the sinking helplessness he felt inside.

‘Matthew?’ Steve called again. ‘Shall I stick around?’ Oversee the preliminary examination until removal of the body, he meant, always keen to follow rules and do things exactly by the book.

Sometimes, though, when murdering scumbags walked around scot-free, flouting the law, Matthew couldn’t help wishing he could throw the rule book away.

‘Do that.’ He nodded despondently over his shoulder. ‘And keep me posted, particularly as to the whereabouts of the missing shoe.’

Dragging a hand over his neck, Matthew pondered as he walked, trying to get his head around someone as devoid of feeling as Sullivan calmly checking he’d left no evidence. But then, the bastard has always been meticulous, making sure to cover himself when he’d decided he needed to teach people a lesson. Concocting alibis if ever one of his girls found courage enough to point the finger at him, alibis mostly provided by other young girls too terrified not to lie when he asked them to. Even the piece of scum’s wife lied for him, obviously preferring to turn a blind eye than give up the luxurious lifestyle her husband’s businesses afforded her.

Vermin! Matthew’s fist hit the brick wall without process of forethought. His chest heaving, counting silently in an attempt to control his fury, he studied his stinging knuckles as globules of rich, red, fresh blood popped through the wounded flesh. Focus, he warned himself, groping ineffectually for some kind of detachment, trying hard to still the almost overwhelming desire to go directly to the ‘respectable’ Amersham home of the shit-dealing, pimping bastard who’d prostituted that young girl, abused her, used her, raped her probably, and – as sure as the sun rose in the east – murdered her. Patrick Sullivan. Pat to his friends, Pit-bull to those who crossed him, the man would never let go a grievance.

Matthew wasn’t about to either.

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