Dead Souls: A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist Book 6 Read online

  DEAD SOULS

  A GRIPPING SERIAL-KILLER THRILLER WITH A SHOCKING TWIST

  ANGELA MARSONS

  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

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Acknowledgments

  A Letter from Angela

  SILENT SCREAM

  EVIL GAMES

  LOST GIRLS

  PLAY DEAD

  BLOOD LINES

  DEAR MOTHER

  THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN

  Also by Angela Marsons

  This book is dedicated to my partner Julie Forrest who holds my hand every single day.

  And one day you will come to understand how invaluable you are in this process.

  PROLOGUE

  Justin looked down at the blade as it hovered above his wrist. The knife was his mother’s; the trembling was his.

  For a second he was overcome by the practicality of the task. Had he chosen the right knife for the job? There were so many of them. Knives in the cutlery drawer. Knives sticking out of a wooden block. A set of sterling silver knives left to his mother that lived in their own decorative box.

  This knife was not his first choice. Initially he had reached for the biggest, baddest knife in the drawer. Its edge serrated. A row of sharp teeth like a mountain range.

  The handle had felt good in his grip but the thought of those teeth ripping across his skin had made him wince. Ironic, that he was ending his life, yet worried about the pain involved.

  He had put it back and reached for another. A long sleek number with a thicker, meatier handle. He’d seen his mother slice the Sunday roast with it many times.

  A pang of sadness, mixed with regret, coursed through him.

  He remembered sitting down every Sunday, beside his little sister, eagerly awaiting the most anticipated meal of the week. His mother would place each dinner plate, carefully, ceremoniously. Her face tinged with pride. He swallowed as he realised that she would never again look that way when thinking about him.

  The knife faltered as he wondered if there was any way back to those days; his early teenage years when belonging within his family had been enough. The days out, the seaside holidays, the takeaway and film nights.

  He swallowed deeply.

  He wasn’t that boy any more. Had not been for years. The rage that had seeded within him had been fanned to a roaring inferno.

  He knew what he had to do.

  His mother’s face planted itself in his mind. The pain he felt was almost physical.

  He cried out as he pulled the blade across his wrist.

  The action left a scratch that criss-crossed some of the other poor attempts he’d already made. This effort was rewarded with a small bubble of blood at one end of the cotton-thin line. It was progress.

  Her face remained in his mind. It was filled with understanding and forgiveness. The way she had looked when he had earned a detention for punching a boy in the school playground. Or the time he had taken another kid’s bike and damaged the front wheel. These were mistakes and he had been forgiven.

  This would not be one of those times.

  Never before in his eighteen years had he wished to turn back the clock. In the last two days he had wished it on the hour, every hour. The regret was not for himself. He would never marry. He would never bring a girlfriend home to meet his mum. He would never have children. But his regret was for his mother. He took with him her only hope of a grandchild.

  In his mind the face of his mother changed and looked puzzled, confused, almost questioning.

  The pain of her pain ripped through his heart.

  She would question herself. She would wonder what she’d done wrong. If it was her fault.

  Tears stung his eyes at the thought.

  ‘This is all wrong,’ he whispered, as he began to shake his head.

  He couldn’t bear the thought of his mother blaming herself. It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault. It was his own.

  His hand let go of the knife and reached into the top drawer of his bedside cabinet and took out a notepad and pen.

  He knew there was no other way for him. Had known it for two days. But his mother did not have to live the rest of her life with guilt due to his choices. He would never forgive himself for what he’d done and, try as she might, she would never forgive him either.

  He paused as he remembered the helpless, terrified face that had looked up at him, confused, searching for the reason; the motivation for his actions. It was a question he had suddenly been unable to answer, and it sickened him to his core. Those eyes, oh God, tho
se eyes, full of fear, found the shame in his heart. It was only then he’d realised exactly what he’d become. The blackness of his soul had taken away his breath. He had turned into a monster.

  It would not end with him. In truth, it was only just beginning. Death and hatred were coming, and he was too cowardly to stop them.

  He placed the note to his mother on top of the pillow and reached once more for the knife.

  His grip was firm and his hand was steady as he focussed on the vein in his wrist.

  He slashed at the skin with the blade.

  This time, he meant it.

  ONE

  ‘Bryant, take this left,’ Kim cried, as she heard sirens in the distance.

  The brakes screeched as he did a Clarkson around the bend onto a trading estate.

  ‘I’m pretty sure we were on our way home,’ he grumbled.

  Kim ignored her colleague as she swept her gaze left, forward, right and back again, her eyes peeled for any movement between the darkened buildings.

  ‘Guv, you do know there are other officers on the West Mid—’

  ‘We were less than a mile away from an armed robbery with injury and all you can think about is your pie and mash?’ she snapped. It was his own fault for keeping his radio on.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he conceded. An evening meal paled against the vision of an innocent male bleeding profusely from a stab wound to the stomach.

  ‘I’m willing to bet he’s on here somewhere,’ she said, narrowing her eyes against the darkness.

  She already suspected from the description that they were searching for Paul Chater, a nineteen-year-old prolific shoplifter she’d been hauling into the station since he was eleven.

  The lad was banned from every shopping centre and high street shop that were members of an intel-based partnership scheme, and his photo had been passed around more than a reality star’s sex tape.

  ‘Why would he come on to here?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Because it’s like a small town,’ she answered. ‘This place has over two hundred units and three miles of road.’

  They were less than a quarter of a mile from the shop, and the kid was still riding a crappy old moped with a dodgy exhaust muffler. He would want to be off the main roads as quickly as possible.

  ‘We could both be driving around here for an hour and not meet,’ she said.

  ‘So, he probably knows we’re gonna look here?’ Bryant said.

  ‘Not in an Astra Estate,’ she answered. ‘He’ll be paying more attention to those bloody sirens.’

  In recent years, Paul Chater had focussed his shoplifting and theft from small shops with limited or no CCTV. He took his frequent stretches inside as an occupational hazard and a well-earned rest. But the report of a knife was an escalation.

  Kim rolled down her window, hoping the tinny sound of his bike would give him away, but the sound of the approaching sirens was doing nothing to help her.

  ‘Guv, we’re not gonna find—’

  ‘There he is,’ she cried, pointing through the windscreen.

  Bryant put his foot on the accelerator.

  ‘No, don’t chase him,’ she warned. ‘He’s looking for somewhere to hide. If he drops the bike and goes on foot, we’ll never catch him.’

  She tried to think quickly. ‘Carry on to the end of the road, do a right and then a left.’

  If Chater had any sense at all, he’d be riding to the far west of the site that backed on to a steep bank leading to the canal towpath, but the way he was heading meant a half mile of straight road first.

  As they cut across a hardware store car park and landed on the stretch of road, Chater came into view, aiming right for where she’d thought he would.

  ‘Catch him up,’ she instructed.

  Bryant hit the accelerator again.

  Chater looked behind.

  ‘Faster,’ she barked.

  The sound of the sirens told her that squad cars had entered the estate, but she knew they would never catch up with him now.

  It was just them.

  ‘Get alongside him,’ she said, letting down her window fully.

  The bank was two hundred metres away.

  ‘Guv, what are?—’

  ‘Pull over,’ she screamed once she was level with Chater.

  ‘Pull over,’ she repeated, shouting into his surprised face.

  One hundred and fifty metres.

  ‘Guv, don’t do anything—’

  ‘Stop the fucking bike,’ she cried.

  One hundred metres until he dropped the moped and ran.

  The moped nudged ahead.

  ‘Get me closer,’ Kim said, breathlessly.

  ‘Don’t do what I think—’

  ‘Bryant, I already asked him nicely,’ she said, turning in her seat.

  Fifty metres and she was back level with his upper arm.

  She hesitated for just a second and then remembered the radio message that had described Mr Singh bleeding back at the shop.

  Twenty-five metres.

  She grabbed the handle and opened the car door, nudging him in the thigh.

  Bryant hit the brakes as the moped was falling to the left away from the car.

  She threw open the door and scrambled out. Chater got to his feet and began to run towards the bank.

  The sirens were coming at her from all directions as she closed the three metre gap between them.

  She launched forward as he reached the foot of the hill.

  ‘Gotcha,’ she cried, tumbling on top of him. The solid zip of her leather biker jacket dug into her stomach and his back.

  He groaned and struggled to get out of her grip.

  She turned him over and looked into the face behind the Perspex visor.

  ‘Okay, you little shit,’ she said, straddling his stomach. ‘What you been up to this time?’

  ‘Gerroff me, bitch,’ he said, wriggling his hips like Ricky Martin.

  She tightened her thighs around his ribs. ‘Where’s the knife, Paul?’

  ‘Weren’t no knife,’ he protested.

  The denial from his lips was quick, but his eyes did not agree.

  ‘Where is it, Paul?’ she asked, tightening her grip on his wrist.

  ‘Told yer, weren’t no fucking knife,’ he shouted now that the courage of his conviction had caught up with him. ‘Just wanted some fags, didn’t I?’

  Kim felt the anger surge through her at the picture of an innocent man bleeding back at his own shop. His life hanging in the balance because this little scrote didn’t want to pay for smokes.

  ‘So get a job and buy some,’ she said, tightening her grip as a squad car pulled into the kerb at an angle.

  She looked to her colleague who was now standing against the car with his arms crossed. ‘You know, Bryant, I bloody hate people who think the world owes them something.’

  ‘Shall we take him, Marm?’ asked one of the arriving constables as a second squad car pulled up.