The Puppet Maker: DI Jack Brady 5 Read online

  Danielle Ramsay

  Danielle Ramsay is a proud Scot living in a small seaside town in north-east England. Always a storyteller, it was only after pursuing an academic career in literature that she found her place in life and began to write creatively full time after being shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger in 2009 and 2010. She is the author of four previous Jack Brady crime novels, Blood Reckoning, Blind Alley, Broken Silence and Vanishing Point.

  Always on the go, always passionate in what she is doing, Danielle fills her days with horse-riding, running and murder by proxy.

  Also by Danielle Ramsay

  Broken Silence

  Vanishing Point

  Blind Alley

  Blood Reckoning

  The Puppet Maker

  Danielle Ramsay

  www.mulhollandbooks.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Mulholland Books

  An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  1

  Copyright © Danielle Ramsay 2016

  The right of Danielle Ramsay to be identified as the

  Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  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 written permission 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 being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

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

  Paperback ISBN 978 1 473 61147 4

  eBook ISBN 978 1 473 61148 1

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  To Mum and little sis – for always being there

  ‘Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.’

  Walter Benjamin

  ‘It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe that lures him to evil ways.’

  Siddhartha Gautama

  Contents

  Prologue

  DAY ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  DAY TWO

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  DAY THREE

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Jack Brady

  Mulholland

  Prologue

  Saturday: 9:33 p.m.

  The basement was dark, damp and cavernous. It suited its purpose as a graveyard of sorts. Forgotten about. Filled with ghostly objects and questionable medical implements. Brady shone his torch across the discarded equipment, some dating back to when the Victorian mental asylum had first opened. The security guard had left him to it. Unnerved by the old psychiatric chairs with their leather restraints and other paraphernalia left to rot in the blackness. Brady couldn’t blame him. He was equally uncomfortable down here. Then he heard it again. A doleful booming.

  That noise . . . What is that noise?

  He stumbled over something on the floor. Shit! Whatever he had tripped over rolled away, clattering into another item. The sound echoed around him, reverberating off the high brick walls. He flashed the torch into the deep recesses of the basement. Not that he could make anything out: the blackness was impenetrable.

  He was starting to get jumpy. He needed to focus. There was a reason he was searching the bowels of an abandoned and boarded-up mental asylum late on a Saturday evening – James David Macintosh; a serial murderer who was still at large. Brady had found himself unable to ignore the gut feeling he had; one that was telling him that the old psychiatric hospital was somehow significant.

  He heard it again. A dull thud. It seemed to boom around him. Echoing off the high cold walls.

  Fuck!

  He turned around, stabbing at the shadows surrounding him. He couldn’t figure out the direction of the noise, let alone the nature of it. He listened again.

  Bang . . . bang . . . bang . . .

  It was then he knew. He was not alone. Something – or someone – was down here with him. His mind raced with thoughts of James David Macintosh as the banging – low, dull and repetitive – filled the chilling blackness around him.

  Shit! What if . . .

  He pulled out his mobile. No signal. What did he expect? He thought of yelling out for the security guard. But he dismissed the thought. It was crazy. He was overreacting. He flashed the torch around the basement again, but the space was so large that he could not make out where it ended. Then the thought came back to him.

  What if he is here?

  Macintosh. The suspect he was looking for. A serial killer who had axed his victims to death. First, his psychiatrist and his family in 1977. Then, when he had finally been paroled for that crime, he had murdered his probation officer and his family. But he had left one survivor. A three-year-old girl, who for whatever sick reason only Macintosh could answer, he had taken with him when he fled the murder scene.

  Bang . . . bang . . . BANG.

  Cold sweat ran down Brady’s back. He held his breath and waited, trying to ignore the loud, accelerated thundering of his heart. He wondered whether he had foolishly walked into a trap. Had Macintosh lured him here? Had he followed unwittingly? Images assailed him of the axe the killer had used so indiscriminately.

  BANG . . . BANG . . . BANG . . .

  The booming intensified. He had no choice but to find out. He kicked random objects out of the way as he walked into the endless darkness ahead of him. He shone his torch, swiping at the shadows and ominous black shapes. Then he understood. Saw it. At the other end of the basement.

  Brady held the torch as steady as was physically possible. He stared at the brick monstrosity that had revealed itself to be an industrial-sized furnace. It was twelve foot wide and ran up the entire height of the basement wall.

  The banging began again. Louder. Uglier.

  He walked over to the disused furnace, discounting the idea that Macintosh would be in there. Why would he be? No. Brady was now thinking about the infant girl he had taken with him.

  He dropped the torch and started struggling with the large furnace door. It seemed to take forever before he succeeded in freeing it. The hinges groaned and creaked in resistance as he swung it open.

  It took him a moment to register.

  Annabel?

  A girl. Thin. Small. Crouched over on scabby knees. Dirty. Covered in dried blood and . . .

  Fuck . . . No . . . Brady steadied himself, not quite trusting what he was see
ing.

  Hair filthy. Matted. Her eyes. Black. Stared back at him. Unresponsive.

  Oh Christ! What’s happened to her? What the fuck has someone done?

  All thoughts of James David Macintosh and the three-year-old girl disappeared. He was too thrown by the young victim facing him. Someone had locked her in there. With . . . Oh God . . .

  Shocked, he stared past her. Past her undead eyes to the others.

  So many of them . . .

  He stood still. Mesmerised by the horror. They were dead. All of them – apart from her.

  Why were they like that? Identically dressed. Long dark hair. Perfect faces. Painted. Heavy red lipstick – each one of them. All turned to face him. Watching him.

  Grotesque. Horrific. Dead.

  Then the screaming started. The girl. Her black eyes now filled with terror. Staring and staring at Brady, screeching a cry so inhuman, it was as if she had lost her mind.

  DAY ONE

  SATURDAY

  Chapter One

  Saturday: 3:01 a.m.

  Shit . . . shit . . . my head . . .

  She struggled to open her eyes – to keep them open. The pain in her head was unbearable. She closed them again, willing the pounding to subside. Minutes passed. Torturously slow. Any kind of movement racked the pain up to a level that was insufferable. So she lay face-down on the hard, cold floor and waited. Not moving – breathing as shallowly as possible – she remained there.

  She had no idea how long she had lain there for, but finally, she was able to open her eyes and turn her head. The room was so black it was impossible to see anything.

  That smell . . .

  The still, heavy air was nauseating. It smelt of vomit combined with an astringent odour of stale urine. She could feel herself starting to gag. Fear snaked its way through her cold body, coiling itself into a tight knot in her queasy stomach. It brought with it a sudden acknowledgement. A hard slap that jolted her back to reality.

  Last night . . . Oh God . . . what happened?

  Then she started to remember. First one image, then another and another. Lurid, debasing snapshots assaulted her senses.

  Him . . .

  Her stomach started to churn. He had drugged her. She was certain of that. He had taken her to his place . . .

  Oh fuck . . . where am I?

  ‘Help? Help me?’ she suddenly cried out. But her voice was barely audible.

  Her throat hurt. It felt raw and swollen. Then she remembered why. She did not need to see the mottled purple and bluish bruising left behind by his hands. She could feel them encircling her neck and squeezing: slowly, surely, mercilessly. Her stomach tightened as she recalled the satisfaction he gleaned from strangling her while he— She stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to think about what he had done.

  She now understood why the room smelt of vomit. She had been sick, but her stomach could only retch up bile. Not that he had cared. He was only interested in raping her.

  She could taste him in her mouth and smell him on her skin. A vile, distinctive odour that reminded her of bleach. She swallowed.

  She tried to block out the thoughts. The brutal, sick images that kept replaying over and over again on a self-destructive loop.

  She needed to pull herself together. She didn’t have time to be weak and self-pitying. If she did, then she wouldn’t leave here alive. She had to focus on one thought – getting out.

  She listened for a noise. Something that could give her a clue as to where he had brought her. But there was nothing but oppressive silence. Then she heard it; a dripping noise. Faint but constant. Scratching . . . Something or someone was scratching. It was barely audible. But she could make out what sounded like nails dragging against metal.

  Terror gripped her as she tried to discern the direction of the scratching. But it had stopped. Tears started to spill down her cheeks. She was desperate for a drink. It felt as if tiny shards of broken glass were lodged in her throat. She willed herself to get up. To move. She needed to find that water – and a way out. But her body felt as if it belonged to someone else. The smallest movement was an effort. Her head was still pounding and her limbs felt too weak to comply. She tried to push herself up from the mattress.

  She cried out. Her knee exploded. The pain, blinding.

  Then the panic took over.

  I don’t want to die. Not here. Not like this.

  She needed to focus. Get herself thinking straight. He had left her – for now.

  She forced herself to fight the panic. Managed somehow to pull herself up. Exhausted and light-headed, she leaned back against the cold, damp wall and sat for a moment steadying herself against the screeching pain in her knee.

  Had she fallen? She couldn’t remember . . .

  She breathed out slowly, trying to stop herself from retching. She had no idea what time it was, or how long she had been here. It was then that she became aware that her ankle hurt as well. More than hurt, it was burning with a cold feverish intensity. She pulled her leg in towards her body and heard what sounded like metal being dragged. Something was clasped tightly around it, cutting into the flesh. Panic-stricken, she felt her way down her leg.

  Panic took hold again. She tried to fight it. A metal cuff was secured around her ankle. Desperate, she grabbed at the chain attached and yanked as hard as she could. It was futile. It didn’t move.

  Fuck! I’m trapped . . . Oh fuck, why? Why has he done this to me?

  Then she understood – he’s planning on coming back and . . .

  She stopped herself. She didn’t want to think about him coming back. The thought of him filled her with dread. Those eyes filled with contempt. No remorse, shame or empathy. Nothing but disgust for her.

  The things he had done to her . . . He had hurt her in a way that was inconceivable. And that was just the beginning. He had told her he had plans for her.

  She tried to stop herself trembling. Whether it was fear or cold that had taken over her body, she couldn’t say. All she knew was that she was terrified. Terrified of him coming back. There was no mistaking the fact that he had hidden her.

  She wrapped her arms around her chest in an attempt to warm herself.

  The darkness surrounding her had started to become claustrophobic. She could make nothing out. Fear of the unknown was threatening to unhinge her. She had always been terrified of the dark. It was something that she had never grown out of – that irrational feeling that something or someone was lurking in the shadows waiting for you.

  For fuck’s sake, keep it together and think . . . think it through. Try and remember what happened . . .

  She shut her eyes tight as she tried to recall the events that had led her here. Slowly, pieces of memory, sketchy and hazy, started to come back.

  Last night. Then . . .

  The memory jolted her. Him. The car. What happened next? She couldn’t remember.

  She couldn’t fucking remember!

  Then she was here.

  Wherever here is . . .

  She had woken up in a cellar of sorts – some underground basement. But she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that it was black in here. So black. She couldn’t see anything. Nothing. But she could feel the damp everywhere. The wet cold embraced her bare flesh. Clung to her hair. She used her fingers to feel the ground. It was nothing more than dirt. The wall behind her was stone. Damp and mould covered.

  She shuddered involuntarily as she thought of him. For all she knew he could still be in here, waiting in the blackness for his next move. His touch had been hard, aggressive. His breath sour and filled with longing.

  ‘Help? Help me? Please?’ she called out. But her voice was nothing but a whisper. ‘Please . . . please . . . someone help me . . .’

  For some reason she knew it was pointless. That he had hidden her some place where no one would hear her. After all, how loud had he made her scream out? And no one had come then. So what were the chances of someone hearing her pathetic cries now?

  Tears st
arted to fall freely at the realisation of her situation. She had had a crap life. Been through shit, much more than your average teenager, but she had coped. Survived. Even started to make something of the hand that life had dealt her. And now . . . She clenched her fists as anger coursed through her. She was under no illusions. She had watched enough TV crime series to know that her outcome didn’t look good. Worse still, no one would realise she was missing. She trusted no one and consequently kept herself to herself. How long would it take someone – anyone – to realise that she wasn’t around? Terror sliced through her like a searing blade. The likelihood of her ever being reported missing was remote.

  An overwhelming sense of alarm took hold. How would the police find her if they had no idea she had been abducted? Did he know this in advance? Had he stalked her? It seemed more than probable that he had been watching her; for this was not some random abduction – it had to be premeditated. Otherwise, how would he have known that she was going to be there last night? She hadn’t told anyone her plans. No one knew her personal life. And that was the way she operated. She had trusted people in the past – and what had it got her? Nothing but pain. So she had shut people out. And now, it seemed that the isolated sanctuary that she had created for herself had imploded. Because now no one would be aware that she had disappeared.

  Oh God!

  Then she heard it again. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  A rasping, grating high-pitched noise – as if something or someone was trying to claw their way out. But it was not the scratching that scared her. No. It was something much more sinister.

  Breathing. Someone was in here with her.

  Chapter Two

  Saturday: 6:42 a.m.

  The headlines screamed at him: ‘Police Incompetence’ – followed by his name: ‘Detective Inspector Jack Brady.’ He picked up that morning’s edition of the Northern Echo, scrunched it into a ball and threw it at the overflowing bin.