First Published in 2019
By MB Publications
Copyright © Liz Mistry
Liz Mistry Has asserted her right under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual person living or dead, is purely co-incidental.
A CIP Catalogue Record for this book is available from the British Library
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency
ISBN
Print 978- 1- 9161835-1-3
Also Available in her DI Gus McGuire series are:
Unquiet Souls
Uncoiled Lies
Untainted Blood
Uncommon Cruelty
Unspoken Truths
Also coming soon is the first in a new series featuring DS Nikki Parekh Last Request
Praise for Liz Mistry
‘I have great admiration for Mistry’s skill, this is one of the best crime thrillers I’ve read in ages.’
‘Absolutely fantastic read.’
‘Simply unputdownable.’
‘Devoured in two days.’
Unseen Evil
By
Liz Mistry
Nilesh, Ravi, Kasi, and Jimi,
as always you have my back and I love you!
PROLOGUE
SUMMER 2018
SUNDAY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
MONDAY
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
TUESDAY
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
WEDNESDAY
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
THURSDAY
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
FRIDAY
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
SATURDAY
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
March 2018
The Zodiac Club
W e had to have a headquarters. Somewhere we could meet. Somewhere we wouldn’t be seen and just by luck, while I was exploring, I found it. An old grocer’s store on a side road. No For Sale sign, no indication anyone was interested in it… Nothing. It was easy to get in.
The front of the property faced a busy side street, but the windows were covered by a metal shutter with Bradford City spray painted on in black. Some smart-ass had crossed out the ‘C’ of City with a black marker and replaced it with a ‘T’. How droll. I knew there was no way in from the front, so I wandered around the back. It looked promising, so I waited until dark and came back. Sure enough, the back of the shop had an enclosed yard with a sturdy door which was hanging off its hinges. But, more importantly, the properties behind it were also lying empty… apart from the druggies and tramps that occupied them by night. It was easy to get the gate fixed and I knew just the person to help me. A sturdy lock and we were sorted. Our own private space.
I love it. It’s well enough out of the way as to be discreet, but not too far out of the way as to be difficult to get to. The headquarters we call it… HQ. Nobody sees us coming and going because we’re invisible. Today’s important. Today is the day we extend our manifesto… make more plans… finalise things.
‘Neck it! Neck it! Neck it!’
Their chants are like hooligans at a football match as they loll about on the carpet, sprawled over the cushions, intent on getting pissed. Leo, dark eyes all sparkly, cheeks flushed, hands clapping in time with the chants, is the most drunk. Pisces is a little less so… nervous, maybe? Picking those oozing pussy spots and licking cracked lips – yuk, enough to make me want to barf, but I cover it up… for now. Instead, I move my phone, taking in our handiwork… all this will go down in history… saved for posterity. I smile a little. I remember when I used to muddle that word with posterior… but that was a long time ago.
The items pinned to the wall document the progress we’ve made. A timeline of charts, newspaper clippings, photos… Each one evidence. Each one a piece of the plan. Ambling round the room I zoom in on my favourites.
First there’s the list:
Sumaira Begum
Shannon Oyando
Billy Clark-Thompson
Becky Easton
Imran Sajid
Suki Singh
It’s so satisfying to see them all crossed out. Next there’s the first lot of evidence… the photos. Sumaira Begum, when she found the bacon in her locker… that was brilliant. She was hysterical… crying and yelling as if someone was stuffing the rasher down her throat. It served her right telling Ms Copley about me smoking in the girls’ toilets. The one of Shannon Oyando with her tits out – ’cept they weren’t really hers – we’d photoshopped over hers, printed them out, and stuck them up in the lads’ toilets.
The other two are still necking the voddie… Leo’s really flushed now and Pisces, all bleeding pox and nervous eyes, is getting there too. I’ll call the meeting to order in a bit, but for now, I record the last few items… the newspaper clippings… Fame! I love the way we’ve moved on… the way we’ve developed. Progress… you can’t whack it.
November 2017
Local Teacher Convicted of Grooming Students
Craig Borthwick, a teacher at a local secondary school, pictured here entering court, today received a ten-year sentence after images showing him booking into a low budget hotel with a fourteen-year-old stude
nt were anonymously uploaded to the Internet.
January 2018
An unnamed Bradford teenager has been found dead in his bedroom in a suspected suicide. The fifteen-year-old’s parents claim their son was being bullied on social media… a police investigation is ongoing.
Stupid bloody Billy Clark-Tosser. Couldn’t take it. Facebook shut his page down… it was so funny. We all got the dick pics I sent from his Facebook page. That taught him to make sure he’d logged out… couldn’t believe that he did that though… topped himself… what sort of sick shit is that?
I end the recording and flop down on the cushions between the other two and grab the bottle. No point in letting them get too rat arsed. This is our tenth meeting and today’s the day we’ll up the stakes. Right at the start, I gave us all code names. I’m Zodiac, of course. The Zodiac Killer, one of the world’s most famous killers, but, more importantly, one of the few who has never been identified. I chose well.
Then there’s Leo after Nathan Leopold Jr. Poor little rich kid, working as a team with his mate and thinking he could escape justice… how did that work out, Leo? My Leo doesn’t have the same mental capacity but, well, beggars can’t be choosers. I admit I had to push it a bit with Pisces, but I got there in the end. Pisces equals fish; Albert Fish, a cannibal and grotesque serial killer. My Pisces doesn’t carry the same panache, but again, it’s only a name. It makes me laugh that they don’t get it, though, the joke’s on them… just like I planned. The joke will always be on them.
I look at them and wait. That’s my strategy… let one of them take the lead for now. If either opens up the subject, it’ll be easier. They don’t get it… neither of them. That’s why I chose these two… gormless… impressionable… the exact opposite from me because I do want to make an impression.
Pisces keeps looking at the floor, head bowed, leg jittering. I wish the idea of a shower was higher on Pisces’ list of priorities… that’s why the other kids are always teasing and taunting the dirty git. No one likes smelly kids with crappy clothes. I sidle a little further away, don’t want to catch anything, do I?
The game was the easiest sell I had to make. Who doesn’t love a game, after all? The beauty of it is… it wasn’t my idea… or was it? Who knows? Will we ever know?
All I’m saying, is that planting seeds is the easiest part, nurturing them? Now that’s hard. I want to press my fingernails into Pisces’ knee. Make the jittering stop. It’s getting on my nerves big time. I want to yell, ‘I’ve arranged everything, brought all the equipment, taken all the risks. What more do you want?’
But, I don’t. I need to make this work. I need to play one of my blinders… one of my aces. Gotta keep the minions on-board… keep them in line. An image of that stupid game my mum used to watch springs to mind… The Weakest Link. No points for guessing who’s the weakest link here. Not rocket science, is it?
I remember how it was when we upped the stakes last time and I take a sip of the vodka. Not enough to get me pissed, just enough to smooth my edges… and I remember.
We sat down, the three of us. We were all excited, but I kept my excitement hidden as I handed the envelopes to Leo. We’d played the game before, but this time it was going to be different. This time we were moving up a level… Only they didn’t know it yet. ‘Lay them out.’
Leo took a last swig of the fizzy plonk and handed the dregs to me. I passed it to Pisces. They’d already downed one bottle and were at that giddy phase where they’d do anything. I just needed to sow the seeds and let them take it from there. ‘You finish it. I’ve had loads already.’
As Pisces downed the last mouthful, Leo made a big show of shuffling the envelopes before laying them in a circle with just a little space between each one.
Arms spread, Leo grinned, all lopsided and stupid. ‘Ta dah’… and promptly burped, which of course set the two of them off giggling again. Give me strength!
There were five tonight. Five names… They’d chosen them, not me, but they didn’t get that. They were so willing to let things blur.
‘Leeeeet’s get this party started.’ Pisces sang out of tune and out of rhythm… Story of their lives really… and placed the empty bottle in the middle of the circle.
‘Go on then, Leo. Your turn to spin.’ Pisces leant forward, legs crossed, keen to discover who it would be.
Leo looked to me as if asking permission and I nodded. ‘Go on, your turn. Make it a good one.’
Pisces, clearly three too many, started to chant, ‘Spin it! Spin it! Spin it!’
The bottle spun and ended up dead between two envelopes. ‘Oh, let me do it again. I didn’t spin it hard enough.’
Again, with the, ‘Spin it! Spin it! Spin it!’
Didn’t matter to me how many times they spun it as long as, by the end of it, we had a name… and we did.
Still grinning, I look at them. Leo’s buzzing, but Pisces looks all pukey and scared.
‘Don’t think we should do this anymore.’ Pisces picks at the craters again, leg going nineteen to the dozen.
For fuck’s sake! Time for a little brain mess!
‘You came up with this idea. You told us how much you needed to do this. It was your idea… surely you don’t regret it, do you? I mean you got what you wanted. Remember you wrote it down. You spun the bottle and it landed right there… you chose it. You made all the arrangements; all we did was be your friends…’ I don’t look at either of them. Keep my head angled down at the floor, don’t want them to see the rage. I need to play this tight.
‘Wasn’t my idea… it wasn’t!’
I look up, straight at Pisces. ‘Well it sure as hell wasn’t mine or Leo’s. You wanted to punish them. You said so. That right, Leo?’
Always up for a bit of bullying, Leo grins. ‘Yip. You can’t wiggle out of it now.’
I love the way Pisces’ head jerks back, like Leo’s landed a punch or something. ‘Didn’t want him to die though.’
I snort. ‘Yeah right, after all he did to you? Billy was a knob. And he was always picking on you.’
Leo chips in, ‘Yeah, Pisces, he was. Billy was a dick to you… and to everyone else too.’
Still with the picking, slender fingers, scraping over little smears of blood, linking up the spots like a kid’s dot to dot.
‘What if someone else dies? What if it happens again?’
Leo glances at me, wanting to curry favour, be my bestie and in a gruff, I’m the big I am voice says, ‘Well, maybe that’s what will happen. They deserve it. Look at the names. Think what they’ve done to us.’
And simple as that, we’re sorted… the stakes are raised… Game on!
SUMMER 2018
SUNDAY
CHAPTER 1
G us rolled onto his back and stretched, enjoying the release of tension throughout his body. One of the many bonuses of being in a steady relationship was making love to the accompaniment of tweeting birds as the sun rose, followed by the prospect of a mug of fresh coffee… and time with Patti. Despite the early hour, the oppressive heat of the last few weeks was almost overwhelming. Even with the windows open, not a single breath of air wafted the curtains. The fan, whirring at the bottom of the bed, was the only reprieve from the blanket of heat that pressed down on him. Sprawled in bed, a thin cotton sheet pulled up to his waist and with the smell of their lovemaking still in the air, Gus’ body tingled with a soft post-coital glow.
Through the open bedroom door, the sounds of her pottering about downstairs, talking to Bingo, and singing along to the radio made him smile. Patti was the worst singer imaginable – completely tone deaf, yet she was addicted to Karaoke. Gus loved watching her as she belted out classics like, ‘I Will Survive’,
with more enthusiasm than skill. The contrast with her normal reserved, dependable, head teacher image was only one of the many things he was growing to love about her. Hell, there it was; the ‘L’ word. He expelled a long low breath. Why would someone like her want to be with someone like me? Gus did what he always did and shoved it away, ignoring the persistent thought that if Alice were around, she’d tell him to grow a pair and tell Patti how he felt, but he wasn’t ready for that… not yet.
Positioning a pillow more comfortably behind his back, he sighed. He missed his detective sergeant’s sass, her irreverent, bouncy, say-it-as-it-is attitude and, deep down, he acknowledged that the Alice he once knew, may be gone forever. Last time he’d seen her she’d looked…decimated… yep, that was the best way to describe her… decimated and damaged, but what had been worse was the emptiness in her eyes – as if all her vitality had been stripped from her soul, leaving a black hole in its place. With an effort he pushed the maudlin thoughts from his mind; those were best explored from the safety of his psychiatrist’s couch.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted upstairs accompanied by another aroma – croissants? Freshly warmed-up croissants? Oh my God! How much more indulgence could one man take on his day off? A whirlwind of white fur tornadoed through the door and dived onto the bed, all wagging tail and excited yelps, landing just south of Gus’ groin. As he moved Bingo to a less dangerous position, Patti, wearing one of his old T-shirts, walked in, carrying a tray. Heading straight for Gus, she held it under his nose, just long enough for him to snatch a croissant and with a mischievous grin on her face she said, ‘Miss me?’
Gus snorted through a mouthful of croissant. ‘Didn’t miss your singing. Could hear it all the way up the damn stairs. Surprised the windows are still intact. Justin Bieber would kill you if he heard the way you murdered that.’
Patti laughed. ‘You’re just jealous… and it wasn’t bloody Bieber anyway, it was Paloma Faith’s ‘Make Your Own Kind of Music’.’