Hold Hands in the Dark

HOLD HANDS

IN THE

DARK

A DCI DANI BEVAN NOVEL

#7

By

KATHERINE

PATHAK

≈

THE GARANSAY PRESS

© Katherine Pathak 2016, All Rights Reserved.

Books by Katherine Pathak

The Imogen and Hugh Croft Mysteries:

Aoife’s Chariot

The Only Survivor

Lawful Death

The Woman Who Vanished

Memorial for the Dead

(Introducing DCI Dani Bevan)

The Ghost of Marchmont Hall

Short Stories:

Full Beam

Mystery at Christmas Cottage

DCI Dani Bevan novels:

Against A Dark Sky

On A Dark Sea

A Dark Shadow Falls

Dark As Night

The Dark Fear

Girls Of The Dark

Hold Hands in the Dark

The Garansay Press

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems - without the prior permission in writing of the author and publishers.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

© Katherine Pathak, 2016

#HoldHandsintheDark

Edited by: The Currie Revisionists, 2016

©
Cover photograph Pixabay Images

PROLOGUE

Crosbie Farm, West Kilbride, Christmas 1974

T
he tree was the best thing about the Faulkner family’s Christmases. Magnus Faulkner always selected one of the most robust wee pines from the forest that lay on the fringes of their land.

              With the tree freshly chopped and balanced in a bucket full of soil in the front room, Dale Faulkner carefully draped the string of multi-coloured lights across its prickly branches. The boy stood back and surveyed his handiwork.

              ‘That’s perfect, son,’ his grandmother commented from the chair by the electric bar fire.

              ‘I’m just gonna add a bit of tinsel,’ Dale replied, fishing with his hand in the plastic bag of decorations his Ma had brought down from the attic that afternoon.

              Vicki looked up from her Bunty annual, casting a critical eye over her little brother’s display. ‘Hmm, you’d better switch them on first. If one of the lights has blown you’ll have to take it all off and start again.’

              Dale nodded. His sister was right. He leant down behind the tree, feeling its pines prickling his face and the scent of the needles filling his nose as he fumbled to get the plug into its socket.

              For a split second, the pretty little tree was lit up by a dozen multi-coloured fairy lights. Granny Lomas even had time to let out a little sigh of approval. Then they were plunged into darkness.

              Dale was still crouched behind the tree. He nearly toppled the whole thing over with the shock of the sudden absence of light.

              ‘Are you still there?’ He cried out in alarm.

              Vicki snorted an unpleasant laugh. ‘Of course we are, squirt. Where did you think we’d gone? Beamed up by the Starship Enterprise?’

              ‘Maybe the fuse got blown,’ Granny muttered. ‘Those cheap lights are a menace.’

              ‘I think it’s just another power cut,’ Vicki suggested boredly. ‘Dale, go and fetch the candles from the kitchen, will you.’

              ‘But I canae see a thing!’ The boy’s voice was shrill. The panic was washing over him in waves.

              ‘There’s no need to be a’feared, laddie,’ his Granny soothed. ‘We’re surely used to this by now. We’ve been more without power than with it these past few months.’

              ‘I know,’ Dale sniffled. ‘But Ma’s not here. She knows how to light all the lamps and the fire and stuff. Dad doesn’t bother coming back into the farmhouse when there’s a power cut. He’s got his torches to use out in the sheds.’

              ‘Look,’ Granny exclaimed. ‘There’s some moonlight coming in through the window. Your Ma will only be another hour or so.’ She made her tone as gentle as possible. ‘Come and gather around my chair. We’ll do what we used to when the two of you were bairns.’

              Dale extricated himself from behind the tree and crawled along the uneven wooden floor to sit beside her. To his surprise, Vicki slid off the sofa to do just the same.

              ‘Now,’ Granny said quietly. ‘We shall hold hands in the dark. Then we will know we aren’t on our own.’

              ‘And will you tell us a story too?’ Dale felt his worries melting away. He used to love this game as a bairn.

              ‘Of course,’ she replied.

              While listening to Granny Lomas’s tale about bombing raids and underground shelters, Dale concentrated on the sensation of her warm, bony hand in his. He could feel the roughness of her skin and the veins standing up very slightly on its surface. Vicki’s hand was softer, her skin plump and springy.

              Dale imagined this must be what it was like for blind people, who had to rely on their remaining senses to explore the world around them.

              As if to test this theory, Dale began to hear a faint sound, just discernible above the lyrical rhythm of his Granny’s clear voice. The sound was getting louder. It was coming from somewhere outside. Soon, he had tuned out the story altogether and was simply concentrating on those distant, strange noises.

              There was something about the sounds that he recognised. Every atom of his being was straining to hear what was going on.

              Then the shot came. It was so loud that the three of them automatically broke the circle and put their hands up to their ears to protect them. In that instant, Dale thought he must have been right – that the all-enveloping darkness had made their hearing supersensitive, so that the sudden sound assailed them like a physical blow.

              Granny struggled to her feet. ‘What in heaven’s name was that?’

              No one answered. Vicki had thrown her arms around her wee brother’s shoulders and was gripping him tightly, as much for her own comfort as his. Granny said no more and appeared to be frozen to the spot.

              A complete silence followed the crack of the gunshot and Granny’s unanswered question. It was broken only by the sound of Dale’s muffled but uncontrollable sobs.

Chapter 1

Richmond, Virginia, USA. Present day.

S
ergeant Sam Sharpe tapped the final sentence into his report and fired it off to his superior officer. The Virginia PD detective had just turned fifty. He’d given over thirty years of service to the department. He could afford to take a comfortable retirement package at any time he liked. It was just a question of what he wanted to do next with his life.

              Sam swept a hand through his thick hair, which possessed only a sprinkling of grey. He was heavily built and had a tendency to store fat. In recent months, Sharpe had been weight training, like he’d done in his youth, before Janie and the boys came along. Now his arms and torso were bulked up with muscle rather than excess flesh.

              The sergeant was just packing up his bag to return to his city centre apartment for the evening when Detective Cassie Sanchez pushed through the doors and entered his floor. Sanchez was a lean woman in her late thirties, serious-minded and dedicated to the job.

              ‘How can I help you, Sanchez?’ Sam eyed her carefully. He could tell there was something wrong. The woman’s dark brown eyes were darting from desk to desk, as if she were searching for somebody. ‘Dale isn’t here. He’s on a callout.’

              Sam knew that Sanchez and one of his best detectives had been an item for about a year now. Detective Dale Faulkner had been spilt from his wife for a long while and Sam was pleased he’d got together with such a level-headed woman like Cassie. He also happened to be convinced that the only relationship that could really work for cops was one with another cop.

              The woman’s attractive face began to crumple. ‘I know, sir. We’ve been monitoring all the radio communications taking place on the Southside of the city down in Narcotics this evening. We intercepted somethin’ –,’ her voice cracked.

              Sam got to his feet. ‘What’s happened Detective?’

              Tears had escaped onto her cheeks. ‘It’s Dale. He and Gabe answered a domestic callout – the neighbours had heard screams, an argument-,’

              ‘Yeah, I was here when they got the call.’ Sam felt his stomach do a flip.

              ‘Dale went into the house alone. I heard him tell Gabe to wait out in the car.’

              ‘That’s not proper procedure,’ Sam mumbled, starting to get a really bad feeling about this.

              ‘Dale was gone a good few minutes - ten maybe, fifteen at the most. Then Gabe clearly started to get worried about his partner ‘cause he tried to radio Dale, but there was no answer.’ Cassie put her hands up to cover her face. ‘He’s dead, Sergeant Sharpe! Dale’s dead!’

              Sam took a couple of steps forward and enveloped the distraught woman in his strong arms.

*

T
he name of this suburb had always reminded Sam of his ex-girlfriend, Dani. Midlothian lay to the west of Richmond, just south of the James River. The place had been named after its Scottish counterpart by the brothers who founded it as a coal-mining community 300 years earlier.

              The mining industry was now long-gone from the area. In its place were pleasant suburban villas, highways and schools. It also happened to be where the Faulkner household was situated.

              Sam pulled up outside a neat, detached house with gabled windows. He’d been there many times for dinner and barbecues when Dale and Toni had still been together. Only the Faulkners’ youngest child, Grace, still lived at home with her Mom. The other two had finished college and were living in their own places.

              There was an SUV parked up in the driveway. Sam took a deep breath before he rang the bell.

              Toni pulled open the door very slowly. She was wearing a halter-neck top with a long, flowing skirt. Sam assumed she’d been out in the garden. Her eyes widened when she saw who was standing on her doorstep. ‘You’d better come inside,’ she said weakly.

              Sam followed her into the kitchen. The back door was open onto the sweeping porch. He could make out a swing chair, positioned in the morning sunshine, with a paperback novel lying open on one of its cushions.  

              ‘I’m sorry to bother you at home, Toni. Would you mind taking a seat?’

              The woman lowered herself slowly onto one of the kitchen chairs. Sam sat down opposite her.

              ‘I can’t tell you for how many years I dreaded this visit, Sam.’ Toni’s voice was distant and hesitant. ‘But since Dale and I split, I honestly never thought about it again. I reckoned I didn’t have to any longer, that I was free of the anguish.’

              ‘I’m so sorry, Toni.’

              ‘How did it happen?’

              ‘There’s going to be an internal inquiry into the incident. I can only tell you so much.’

              Toni raised her gaze, looking quizzical. ‘How come?’

              Sam sighed heavily. ‘A call was made to the emergency desk late yesterday afternoon. There’d been reports of an attack on a woman inside of a house in a neighbourhood on the Southside of the city. Dale volunteered to go out there and take a look. Gabe went with him.’

              ‘Detectives always go out in twos, don’t they? You make it sound like Gabe’s presence was an afterthought.’

              Sam noted how perceptive Toni was. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I was there when Dale responded to the report. It was almost like if Gabe hadn’t automatically got up to follow, Dale would have gone out alone.’

              Toni shook her head. ‘Well, that doesn’t make much sense.’ She gulped. ‘What did they find there?’

              ‘The address they’d been given was in a pretty shabby block. The house itself had some boarded up windows. There was no sign of the neighbours who’d called the disturbance in. Usually, one will come out onto the sidewalk when the cops show up. But there was nothin’.’

              ‘They might have been scared.’ Toni wanted to keep talking, to delay the inevitable.

              ‘Sure, it’s a possibility. Dale told Gabe to wait in the car. He patted his holster and then proceeded up to the front door.’

              ‘Hang on – so Dale went in there
alone
?’

              ‘Yeah, it’s a breach of protocol. Gabe’s facing a disciplinary charge. That’s why an inquiry has been set up.’

              ‘But if Dale
told
Gabe to stay put?’

              Sam shrugged. ‘It’s early days, Toni. Gabe’s still mightily shaken up. He sat in the car for about ten minutes, maybe twenty. He said the place was as quiet as the grave. He tried to radio Dale a couple of times and got no response. That’s when he went in.’

              Toni breathed back a sob.

              ‘The door wasn’t locked and the place was in darkness. It didn’t look like it had been lived in for years. Gabe kept calling out for Dale and there was no response. He was having trouble seeing where he was going until he spotted a light at the end of the corridor. He followed it to the kitchen, where a couple of candles had been lit inside old wine bottles. A back door out into a paved yard was swinging open, causing the flames to flicker violently. Then Gabe saw Dale. He was seated at the table. His body slumped against the back of the chair. Dale had a single bullet wound to the forehead. For what it’s worth Toni, it would have been real quick. I don’t believe he suffered. That’s somethin’ to tell the kids, sweetheart.’