Silenced (Wheeler and Ross Book 2) Read online

  Silenced

  Also by A. J. McCreanor

  Riven

  Silenced

  A. J. McCreanor

  Constable • London

  CONSTABLE

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Constable

  Copyright © A.J. McCreanor, 2015

  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 publisher, 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.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-47211-233-0 (hardback)

  ISBN: 978-1-47212-257-5 (trade paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-47211-237-8 (ebook)

  Constable

  is an imprint of

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  For Don

  Silenced

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Communication One

  Welcome, friend, have you decided to read my story? I can call you friend, can’t I? I do hope so. This is my story, my communication to you, and as you read it, we connect and it becomes our shared journey. Our place in time.

  Are you excited?

  I am.

  I feel a delicious shiver of anticipation, which begins at the nape of my neck where the tiny hairs stand upright. Would you like to stroke them, caress the soft down? Forgive me, it’s an innocent fetish of mine. I indulge myself by shaving some fine down from each encounter with a soul-mate. A beautiful expression soul-mate, don’t you think? Unlike the harsh word favoured by the media.

  We are all connected, if only on the spiritual plane. But perhaps you disagree. That’s okay. For you scientists out there, we also share matter, we vibrate – oh, how I love that word – we vibrate at the same frequency. All humans do; it’s what unifies us. Or lumps us together in the same filthy pit. But what interests me most are our differences and how we choose to celebrate them. If we are brave then we can learn to distance ourselves from our humanity and free ourselves from its mundane constraints. Human is not all that we are. You do understand this, don’t you?

  Glasgow. I stalk the city at night, inhaling its stench and its chaos. The city and I share the same drug: we crave the low life and the lurid neon lights that outstrip the dying stars in their fading heaven. I watch as bars and nightclubs cocoon their prey until closing time when they release the wretched filth into the gutter. And the lost souls who sleep on our streets, soil our lanes, squat in deserted shells? They make their own luck, take their chances. Who cares if sometimes they lose, if their gamble backfires?

  But, as ever, the city endures. Sweet, intense Glasgow. As dark as chocolate and twice as bitter.

  To us. To our journey together. Sláinte.

  Chapter 1

  Friday, 31 January, 9 a.m.

  Glasgow was in the throes of the worst storm since records began and the name for it was Thundersnow. Thunder growled across the skyline as snow fell hard and fast over the city. In George Square, sleet fell over the stone lions that guarded the City Chambers, and the wind rapped hard and persistently on the windows. The other statues in the square remained stoic while a lone pigeon balanced on the head of Robert Burns and scrutinized the area for discarded food. The pavements were slippery and the gutters surged with water. New Year and its gaudy celebrations were long gone and only the frozen final day of January remained.

  In Carmunnock, the Rose Memorial Crematorium, a low red-brick building, surrounded by a garden of remembrance, was open for business. The officiant at the service was Raymond Crook, an emaciated man who sported a slim pencil moustache. Crook stepped forward, gripped the side of the lectern, cleared his throat and began: ‘We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Chrissie Haedyear . . .’

  Mark Haedyear sat listening to the description of the woman who had given birth to him. He would not think of her as mother. They had disowned each other early in their relationship, equally matched in their revulsion. Prison Officer Gerry McClure sat on Haedyear’s left and stifled a sneeze, burying his mottled nose in a menthol tissue. On Haedyear’s right, a second officer, Bill Irving, sat erect, stared straight ahead and kept his hands tightly clasped on his knee as a sheen of sweat spread across his bald head.

  Haedyear glanced out through the snow-splattered windows and saw the trees bend to the wind’s demand. He heard the wind shriek and dance and felt that somehow it, too, was celebrating the death of Chrissie. Like Irving, Haedyear’s hands were clasped tightly and blue veins bulged under pale skin. The sleeves of his jacket only partly concealed the handcuffs. Haedyear felt the excitement rise but fought it down. Not yet. He forced himself to remain calm and to think mundane thoughts. He imagined the furnace and the flames that would consume first the coffin, then the body within, knew that the heat would be blistering, maybe even 1000 Celsius. It would devour everything, leaving only a residue of ash. Haedyear had calculated the amount: there would be as little as four pounds of her left. Four pounds of dirt to dump on the earth outside.

  ‘
Now let us remember . . .’

  The eulogy had come as part of the cheapest funeral package available, a generic, fill-in-the-deceased’s-details type of thing. Her name they already had. That he was the next of kin was the most important detail he had provided. It meant that he was in charge. He closed his eyes and listened to the deceased being described by a man who had never met her.

  ‘Chrissie Haedyear was a devoted wife and a loving mother.’

  Well, the first part was true. His childhood had ended the day his father died. When he was five, his beloved father had been dead a year and it had been Haedyear’s first day at school. A milestone. Chrissie had knelt before him and placed her hands on his shoulders. For a moment he had hoped for a mother. Instead he heard her usual refrain, her shrill voice, hoarse with hatred: ‘You are the fucking reason I drink. Do you hear me?’

  He had gone to school, face covered with vodka-soaked spittle. She had kept on at him until he was seven, when he’d grabbed the steel poker and turned on her. The blood had silenced her and she’d never touched him again. At twelve, thanks to his father’s legacy, he’d gone to Oakwood, which he’d left at eighteen to attend university. He had never visited the house again, had never even seen Chrissie. And now she would be incinerated.

  ‘. . . and Chrissie, a woman who surely did her best all her life, will indeed be sadly missed.’

  ‘Come here, you little shit. I want to kill you.’

  ‘. . . a woman who cared greatly for her husband and child.’

  ‘I wish you had never been born.’

  ‘. . . but she will live for ever in the thoughts of the loved ones she has left behind.’

  ‘You’ll never be loved. Who could love a fuck-up like you?’

  Haedyear opened his eyes and scanned the mourners. There were five in all. They were all old neighbours from Clarkston. Chrissie had had no friends who would grieve over her death. No one to hear the news that she had finally drunk herself to death. Haedyear knew that Chrissie had wanted to be laid to rest beside her adored husband in the graveyard. ‘Cremation,’ he’d told them at the Rose Memorial, ‘and scatter her ashes in the garden of remembrance.’ He glanced at his watch: there were a few more minutes to kill.

  Eventually it was over. Haedyear watched the coffin disappear and the curtains close. He turned to McClure. ‘I need a quick trip to the Gents and then we can head back. I just want to say how much I appreciate you coming all the way out here just to let me say goodbye to my mother. She was a wonderful woman and I’ll miss her very much.’ McClure and Irving grunted their condolences and the trio walked out of the room and headed for the toilets. The sweat on Irving’s head had solidified, like a film of skin around a hard-boiled egg. He went ahead and scoured the cubicles for unlocked windows, a false ceiling, a concealed exit. He returned and told them, ‘Nothing, all okay.’

  He lied.

  McClure sneezed loudly into a crumpled tissue. ‘Christ, Haedyear, be quick. I’m dying here.’

  Haedyear smiled. ‘Will do.’

  And he was.

  Chapter 2

  In his badly lit office at the Glasgow Chronicle, Graham Reaper sat at his desk eating a lukewarm mince pie. Flakes of greasy pastry and minute grains of salty meat floated onto the keyboard of his computer until finally he noticed, leaned down and blew hard, dispersing the tiny shards. The reporter’s pallor was as grey as the pastry and his eyes were bloodshot. He glanced at the clock: in an hour he would have another liquid break. A pint of heavy. Sustenance. Just the one. He’d only have the one. Aye, right. Mibbe. When his mobile rang he dumped the pie on his desk and checked the number. He spoke quickly: ‘Aye?’ As chief reporter he didn’t have to trouble himself with manners – it was enough to be efficient.

  ‘Grim?’

  Reaper listened to the wheeze, recognized the tremor in the voice. Jimmy Westcott, kitchen porter at the jail, badly needed a drink. Reaper knew that Westcott was also a heavy smoker and keen gambler and lost more in a month than he’d ever earned. He wasn’t quite the poster boy for healthy living. ‘Okay, Westie, what’ve you got?’

  ‘I’ve got a cracking wee story for you, Grim.’

  ‘Well, spit it out.’

  A pause. ‘The thing is, I need the money upfront. I owe a bit here and there and the guys I’m talking about, well, you don’t mess with them. I’m serious, Grim, they’re not reasonable . . .’ His voice drifted off.

  Reaper kept his tone the right side of bored. ‘Not my problem, Westie. ’

  Silence.

  Reaper gave Westcott enough time to consider his severely limited options. He heard the rattle of a cough. A spit. A sigh. Then Westcott began to wheeze out his information in short, secretive bursts. Reaper grabbed a pen and took quick, urgent notes. Five minutes later he switched off his mobile and knew that he had the lead story. He hammered the digits into his mobile – his next call was to the police media liaison officer. Their conversation was brief but throughout it Reaper typed furiously. Then he called the crematorium. Unsurprisingly it was closed. He called the emergency contact and got a number for the officiant, Raymond Crook. Reaper knew that Crook would be with the police, but he’d get to him later. He also knew that it was useless to try to contact Gerry McClure and Bill Irving, the two prison officers involved. They would be suspended while the investigation was conducted. Reaper’s gut instinct told him that at least one of them had been complicit in the escape. At this point he didn’t know which one or why, or what Haedyear had on him. He guessed that serious threats would have been made, perhaps to a family member, but unearthing that story was for another time. Right now he had the scoop.

  Outside, the weather raged against the building and the wind spat hail at the glass windows. In a few minutes he had finished the online news. He sat back, picked up the last bite of pie and scoffed it while reading his work.

  Murderer Escapes

  Police are today hunting for a murderer who absconded from prison while temporarily released on compassionate leave. Convicted killer Mark Haedyear, 38, escaped in what can only be described as an audacious act while attending a service for his mother, Chrissie Haedyaer, at the Rose Memorial Crematorium in Carmunnock. After the service had concluded, Haedyear managed to escape through a window at the rear of the building.

  Haedyear, originally from the Clarkston area of the city, was a former pupil at the prestigious Oakwood School and had served only three years of a life sentence for the abduction and murder of Amanda Henderson in 2011. Mrs Henderson, 35, was an art historian who had been invited to deliver a lecture at Southside College, where Haedyear also worked.

  After abducting his victim, Haedyear kept her prisoner in an underground chamber in a woodland area close to his home. During an intensive police investigation, Haedyear had been interviewed with the rest of the college staff but was subsequently released. It was only after police received an anonymous tip-off that his home, car and the adjoining woodland area were searched and Amanda Henderson’s body found.

  Police are appealing for the public’s help in tracing Haedyear, and earlier a police spokesperson had this to say: ‘Mark Haedyear is an extremely dangerous criminal and should not be approached. If you have any information at all about this person, please call the number below. I can assure you that all calls will be treated in the strictest confidence.’

  Haedyear is described as white, five foot nine with a slim build. He has cropped fair hair and green eyes.

  Earlier today a member of staff at the crematorium said, ‘I’m extremely shocked by this incident and hope that it does not reflect badly on the Rose Memorial Crematorium. When prisoners are on compassionate leave they are usually heavily guarded and their entry and exit from any area is closely monitored. I can’t imagine how this happened.’

  It is thought that Haedyear escaped through the window and scrambled across open countryside to make his getaway. While he could have been acting independently there has also been the suggestion that he may have had an acco
mplice in order to facilitate the speed of his escape while wearing handcuffs. The two officers who were supervising the prisoner have been interviewed by the police and released. They will, however, be suspended from duty while an inquiry is conducted.

  Reaper typed up the telephone numbers the police had issued and sat back in his chair. Decided the piece read well enough. Job done. He glanced at the clock. Time for a pint. Just the one, he told himself. Aye, mibbe.

  Chapter 3

  Tollcross Road. The road was deserted, the lights from the small shops and cafés had been extinguished, metal grilles and shutters dragged across doors and windows. Alarms had been set and their red eyes winked in the dark. In an alleyway the wind gusted salty chip wrappers around doorways as an ancient grey rat risked a foray into the blue skip parked behind Lou’s Place. It was overflowing with plastic refuse bags, polystyrene cartons, crisp packets and scraps of meat from discarded kebabs. Soiled paper napkins bled crimson sauce into the mess. The rat sat on his hind legs, two front paws in the air, as if begging, but he was sniffing for danger. His nose quivered for a moment as he paused before sensing that it was safe to proceed. He gnawed quickly, feasting on bits of meat while his rheumy eyes scanned the street. He watched. Listened. He stayed alert but he was safe for the moment. There was no one around and the foul-smelling skip was unremarkable, except that on the road beside it the tip of a scruffy black trainer protruded. It was cheap and well-worn. The old rat nibbled on his dinner, his half-blind eyes darting from the alleyway to the road and back until he heard rather than saw the gritting truck approach. Although still hungry, he abandoned his meal and, trailing his mangled leg behind him, crawled into the safety of darkness.