A missing student. A gunned-down detective. A woman in fear for her life. All three are connected somehow.
Detective Inspector Carl Sant and his fellow officers get on the case. But what links the disappearance of a university student, the death of an off-duty police sergeant, and a professor reluctant to help them solve the case?
Their only clue is a sequence of numbers, etched by the police sergeant Dryden on a misty window moments before he breathed his last. Soon it becomes clear that Dryden's clue has brought the past and present into a head-on collision with the very heart of Sant’s profession.
Racing against time, D.I. Sant must find out what's behind the mysterious events - before the bodies start piling up.
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The following extract is from Chapter 5 of CHLOE: LOST GIRL. It’s from the point of view of a middle-aged woman whose previous life as an investigative journalist is coming back to haunt her in her present-day role as a police informant.
She sang all the time. It was a wonder the radio in the kitchenette still worked after sustaining daily hits of soapy water from her singing.
A bit of a music buff, she kept pace with the top songs and artists in the charts. Pub music quizzes were her speciality, though she couldn’t enter a pub these days. Too small, too social. Large public gatherings where no-one cared to know you – they were her sole domain.
Halfway through the chorus of A-ha’s ‘Take On Me’ she thought she heard a knock on the door. Lowered the volume and listened. Heard nothing and twisted the volume knob, belting out a high note, shaking her shoulders, suds plopping onto the old radio.
The knocking came again. No mistaking it this time.
‘Postman – parcel for you!’
She’d ordered nothing. Suspicions darted around her head. Was he really a postman? Spinning away from the sink, she grabbed a towel off the stove, wiped her hands while looking towards the door. Squared her shoulders, fast thinking, pinching her brow.
‘Thank you, leave it outside the door please.’
A slight pause before: ‘It needs signing for, madam.’
A pang of guilt warmed her. If this was a genuine postman, with a genuine parcel, it would be daft not to open up. She walked closer, stopped, hand hovering over the safety chain. It was shiny new, wood and paint behind it marred from the last time…
Her hand fell to her side. She found herself stepping back. ‘I can’t come to the door right now. Pass it through the letterbox.’
Another pause, this time a little longer. She thought she could hear whispering. Suddenly the man coughed a response: ‘No problem, madam. Here it is.’
Keeping her right hand as far from the flap as possible, she reached out and grabbed the electronic pad. It looked genuine enough. Didn’t most couriers use these devices nowadays? She scrawled her name, replaced the pen, extended fingertips to the flap. Swiftly deposited the pad into a grip like a mouth clasping shut.
‘Thank you, madam. I’ll place the parcel right outside your door. Don’t forget it’s here. Lots of unscrupulous types round these parts.’
‘Thank you. I won’t forget.’
She put an ear to the door and heard footsteps fading down the corridor. Then she realised she was sweating. Trying to shrug off the uncertainty, she scorned herself for imagining wolf-like eyes watching her every move.
Yet try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself all was normal that afternoon.
Sunday afternoon!
What kind of postman worked a Sunday afternoon shift?
Answer: a shifty postman. She didn’t like this. Not one bit.
She wouldn’t open that door, not for love or money.
She got the vac out instead and went back to her trusty companion: the telly. The news was on, the voices muffled by the whistling Hoover. She glimpsed images of buildings and streets she recognised. She put down the Hoover and turned up the volume; saw the same buildings and streets she’d passed yesterday. Then came helicopter shots looking down on a double--decker bus, or what was left of it, crushed into a tangled array of shop-fronts like a giant cigarette stub.
BUS TRAGEDY was the caption. The words rolled across the screen: Seven Dead in Bus Attack Including Police Officer. She began to panic. Was this some sick coincidence?
It couldn’t be him… Could it?
A still of the dead officer’s face flashed up, wearing the proud grin of the new recruit who sacrifices everything – peace of mind, well-being, liberty – for the spotless uniform they adorn.
This was the man she’d confided in less than twenty-four hours ago.
Her eyes glued to the TV, the pictures of the disaster zoomed out as live feed of a press conference took centre screen. A detective with a red beard was telling reporters the investigation was in its early stages and no details could be made public at this time. Anyone with information was urged to contact the police.
The information they sought… she had it. She didn’t need to speculate. She knew the details. The crucial detail.
This was murder. And who was next?
She put a hand to her forehead and caught her reflection on the screen. Her arm shot out, fumbled on the wall behind her, slapped the light switch off.
Dan Laughey is a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University where he teaches a course called ‘Youth, Crime and Culture’ among other things. He has written several books on the subject including Music and Youth Culture, based on his PhD in Sociology at Salford University. He also holds a BA in English from Manchester Metropolitan University and an MA in Communications Studies from the University of Leeds. Dan was born in Otley and bred in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, a hop and a skip away from the Leeds setting of his Chloe novels.
His crime writing was purely academic to begin with. He’s written about media violence and tackled the age-old concern about television and video games influencing patterns of antisocial behaviour in society. After years of research and theoretical scrutiny, he still hasn’t cracked that particular nut.
He’s also written about the role of CCTV and surveillance in today’s Big Brother world, the sometimes fraught relationship between rap and juvenile crime, football hooliganism, and the sociocultural legacy of Britain’s most notorious serial killer – the Yorkshire Ripper.
All in all, Dan’s work has been translated into four languages: French, Hebrew, Korean and Turkish. He has presented guest lectures at international conferences and appeared on BBC Radio and ITV News in addition to providing expert commentary for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.
Social Media Links
Twitter: @danlaughey
Facebook: fb.com/laughey
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