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  No Going Back

  Lyndon Stacey

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This First world edition published 2010

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2010 by Lyndon Stacey.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Stacey, Lyndon.

  No Going Back.

  1. Ex-police officers – England – Fiction. 2. Runaway

  children – England – Dartmoor – Fiction. 3. Detective and

  mystery stories.

  I. Title

  823.9′2-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-193-4 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6883-1 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-219-2 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  This one’s for my agent, Dorothy Lumley,

  for all her hard work on my behalf

  over the past few years. Thanks.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A big thank you to the real Hilary McEwen-Smith, who generously bid in a charity auction for the chance to appear in this book. I hope I’ve done you justice!

  Also to Dave McIver, Glyn Jones and police dog, Jerry, of the Avon and Somerset Police Dog Unit for their invaluable help and for the joy of a day spent watching them work.

  For finding the time to answer my questions, thanks to my vet, Sophie Darling, and, as always, thanks to Mark Randle of the Wiltshire force for always being on hand to answer queries.

  PROLOGUE

  Somewhere a dog was barking, fretfully, without hope. In the distance, a siren sounded, the mournful rise and fall signalling misery for someone.

  On the Jubilee Park estate in Bristol, the hard edges of the flat roofs were black against a night sky streaked with scudding clouds. Few of the windows along the balconied walkways were lit. At twelve fifteen a.m. in this neighbourhood, most people chose to stay inside, their doors double-locked and barred, and makeshift grilles on many of the windows.

  On the third-floor walkway nothing moved except the windblown detritus of estate life: a couple of empty cigarette boxes, a condom wrapper and several empty crisp packets. Against one graffiti-covered door the pages of a newspaper fanned open and flopped shut unread, over and over, as if turned in boredom by some unseen hand. The disembodied head of a cheap doll lay close to the spent carcase of a red plastic lighter, and a few feet away, a curl of charred tinfoil skittered over the filthy concrete against the wall of number 231.

  Moments later, the door opened, light spilling through the aperture to frame the tall figure of the man who stepped out. It seemed as though he would have walked away without pausing, but a slim, brown hand caught at the sleeve of his leather coat.

  ‘When will I see you?’ The thin face with its large, heavily made-up blue eyes was pathetically eager. Bottle-blonde and petite, the woman was wrapped in a red satin housecoat, its crossover front revealing a deeply tanned cleavage and a neck that had seen better days.

  ‘In a day or two, maybe.’ The reply was casual, his accent Eastern European. Strong, olive-skinned fingers unhooked the woman’s clutching hand, the light catching the pale, puckered skin of an old scar. His dark eyes flickered dispassionately over her upturned face. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘But what about the smack? Did you bring it? You said you would …’

  The man shook his head and clicked his tongue. ‘Shelley, Shelley, you know it’s bad for you,’ he said, mocking.

  ‘Just one more fix. You promised, Anghel! Please. I won’t ask again.’ Her eyes pleaded with him.

  ‘And how are you going to pay for it? You don’t work any more. Why should Yousef support your habit?’

  ‘But I could work if he’d let me! I don’t understand why I have to be here. What am I going to do? There’s no one to talk to. I miss the girls. I miss Molly.’ Tears filled her eyes and she clutched at the doorpost as if she needed its support. ‘Please, Anghel – I just want to see my little girl.’

  ‘You’ll see her soon. You just be a good girl and everything will be taken care of. OK?’ He put a finger under her chin and turned her face towards him. ‘OK?’

  Reluctantly Shelley nodded. She pulled the housecoat closer about her and shivered.

  After a moment, Anghel took something from an inside pocket and dropped it in her palm. ‘Here. Don’t tell Yousef.’

  Shelley’s eyes lit up. Her fingers clamped shut on the sachet of greyish powder he’d given her, and she took a swift step backwards into the bedsit as if fearing he’d change his mind.

  The door clicked shut, and with a shake of his head, the man turned up his collar against the chill wind and walked away, his footsteps echoing grittily and his broad shoulders throwing a moon-shadow on the wall. He descended to ground level, passing a group of drunken teenagers in the stairwell, his nose wrinkling as it was assailed by the stench of stale urine around the overflowing bins.

  Leaving the building behind, he took a mobile phone from his pocket and flipped it open. Seconds later, he had a connection.

  ‘Yes, it’s me. It’s all taken care of … No, no problems. See you later.’

  Shelley leaned back against the black vinyl cushions of the sofa, her indrawn breath hissing through her teeth as the rush hit her. She hated that first shocking sensation, but yearned for the comforting glow that would follow. Soon everything would be all right; even the desperate longing for her daughter would fade into the golden haze. Anghel would look after her. Hadn’t he promised he would? Anghel had always been kind to her – well, as kind as anyone …

  She sighed deeply as her body and mind began to float, euphoria lifting her out of the squalid bedsit to a halcyon world where depression couldn’t follow.

  Briefly her eyes flickered open in alarm as her muscles were gripped by a powerful spasm; then it passed and her head lolled back, pupils narrowing to pinpoints as her heartbeat slowed and her breathing became shallow. Darkness crowded in.

  As the first grey light of the winter dawn seeped along the concrete walkways of the estate, the city began to stir. Lights came on, cars started to fill the streets, and the pavements swarmed with jostling, chattering kids on their way to school.

  At number 231 Jubilee Park, the only sound was the TV; the efforts of the cheerful breakfast presenters went unheard by the woman in the red satin housecoat, their images reflecting in her half-open eyes.

  She lay sprawled across the faux-leather sofa surrounded by the tools of her addiction, one sleeve pushed back, the arm bruised and speckled with a lifetime of needle scars.

  Only one man knew she was there and he w
ouldn’t be telling. It could be weeks before her body was found.

  ONE

  ‘Trucker’s Dog Saves Toddler,’ the headline halfway down the front page of the Western Post declared.

  The paper was nearly a week old, saved for Daniel by the owner of the roadside burger van where he’d bought his breakfast. He was parked not 20 yards from it now, in a lorry park on the side of the A386 between Tavistock and Okehampton. It was a designated picnic spot, but at this hour of the morning, there were more trucks than cars.

  Pulling a wry face and shaking his head, Daniel Whelan took a sip of his latte-to-go and read on, his booted feet propped up on the dashboard of the lorry.

  When farmer Peter Daley (58) and his wife, Sally (56), discovered that granddaughter Emily had been missing on their 135-acre farm near Launceston for over an hour last Saturday morning, they feared the worst. Peter and Sally aren’t normally overanxious grandparents, but in this case they could be forgiven, because four-year-old Emily, who was staying with them for the weekend, is profoundly deaf.

  ‘I thought she was with Peter and he thought she was with me,’ Sally explained. ‘We were especially worried because there were tractors working in the fields and the men might not have noticed such a small child. We were at our wits’ end, not knowing where to look first, and of course it was no good shouting, because she couldn’t hear us.’

  Things might have looked very black indeed for little Emily if fate hadn’t intervened in the shape of delivery driver Daniel Whelan and his ex-police dog, Taz.

  When truck driver Daniel (28), who was delivering animal feed to the farm, heard what had happened, he offered the services of his German shepherd dog to locate the little girl. Taz had served 18 months with Bristol Police Dog Unit before being injured in the line of duty and retired last year. As a police dog, tracking was part of his work, although in those days it would have been runaway criminals that he trailed rather than lost children.

  Shown a cardigan belonging to little Emily to give him the scent, Taz soon demonstrated that he had forgotten none of his skills, finding the lost child within ten minutes, playing in a hay barn just feet away from a herd of cows.

  ‘Thank goodness the dog found her when it did,’ Sally Daley said, still clearly shaken by the memory. ‘Cows are generally placid, but they can be unpredictable – I dread to think what might have happened if she had wandered in among them.’

  Daniel, who works as a driver for Tavistock Farm Supplies, preferred not to be interviewed, saying that all the credit belonged to three-year-old Taz, who travels everywhere with him in the lorry.

  All’s well that ends well on the Daleys’ farm. Thanks to Taz, Emily is none the worse for her adventure – in fact, she has gained a new friend, 42-kilo Taz, proving that while he might have been tough on criminals, he is just a gentle giant at heart with a soft spot for little girls.

  Daniel had to smile at the last line. The article was illustrated by a picture of Taz sitting dutifully with the child’s arms wrapped round the thick fur of his neck, but to Daniel, who knew him better than anyone, the expression on the dog’s face was one of slightly pained resignation rather than pleasure.

  He held up the paper, turning to where Taz sat at the other end of the bench seat.

  ‘Look, Taz, you’re famous.’

  The German shepherd thumped his tail on the seat a time or two and edged nearer, but his attention was firmly fixed on the dashboard, where a paper bag sat, containing a bacon and egg roll.

  ‘If you’re gonna start drooling, you can sit outside!’ Daniel warned severely, but the dog wasn’t fooled. He moved even closer, his gaze never wavering, knowing from experience that the last bite of bread and bacon would be his.

  Moments later, the butty was forgotten as Taz threw himself at the passenger window of the cab, barking furiously. A sharp word from Daniel calmed him a little, but he remained on edge, growling ominously and hackles up, while he watched a small black Staffordshire bull terrier trot jauntily in front of the lorry and away at the heels of his cab driver owner.

  ‘What? That scutty little thing?’ Daniel teased. ‘You’d make mincemeat of him. Here, have a bit of bacon.’

  The German shepherd accepted the morsel, licked his lips and grumbled some more. He’d had a bad experience with a Staffie when he was just a pup and it would require more than a tasty bribe to take his mind off this one.

  It was a cold, wet day and it was with a sigh of relief that Daniel climbed back into his cab after the last delivery that afternoon and prepared to head for home. He had finished early and with any luck would miss the worst of the Friday traffic.

  Not that thoughts of home were particularly enticing just at that moment in his life: with a limited budget and the necessity of finding somewhere that he could park the lorry from time to time, the only accommodation he’d been able to find had been a one-bedroom flat above an empty shop in a lane off the Tavistock to Launceston road. The unoccupied downstairs space had most recently been a lawnmower showroom and still had the oil stains and stink of petrol to prove it. However, the property had scored on three important points: the rent was cheap; it had a good-sized car park at the back; and it was sufficiently removed from the nearest village to avoid upsetting anyone when he started the lorry’s V12 engine at the crack of dawn.

  The light was poor under an overcast sky, and the windscreen wipers swished monotonously to and fro, barely clearing the fine drizzle before it obscured the glass once again, making the headlights of oncoming vehicles star and spread.

  All in all it was a dreary afternoon and there was nothing to stop Daniel’s mind dwelling on the depressing turn his life had taken. Just three short months ago, he had had what he thought was a stable home life with a wife and eight-year-old son, a career in the police force and a circle of friends. Now, entirely as a result of his own actions, he had none of these and the realization was still raw every time it hit him.

  The fact that it could be regarded as questionable whether friends and colleagues who had shown themselves to be so fickle were worth mourning gave him no comfort at all. There had been many times lately when he’d wondered if, given that period of his life over again, he would make the same choices, and he found he just didn’t know.

  Daniel rubbed his eyes tiredly. Such reflections were pointless. The decisions had been made and he had to live with the consequences. End of story. He switched on the radio, reaching across to ruffle Taz’s soft coat. Lately the dog had become the only constant in his life.

  Taz rewarded his caress with a flattening of his ears. Daniel suspected that he, at least, was very content with their altered circumstances. Amanda hadn’t allowed the dog in the house, complaining that his constantly shedding coat made work for her, so for the first part of his life Taz had mostly lived in a kennel and run in the back garden. It wasn’t so bad when the dog was working, but after he’d been forced to retire, Daniel had hated leaving him shut in while he was on shift. Now, the dog had his company twenty-four hours a day and a daily walk on the moor.

  A sudden burst of the James Bond theme tune interrupted his thoughts, bringing with it a sharp pang of regret: his son, Drew, had downloaded the ringtone to his mobile one day without him knowing, and now he couldn’t bring himself to change it. The display showed that the caller was Fred Bowden, his boss at TFS. Hoping it wasn’t extra work for the evening, Daniel thumbed the ‘call answer’ button.

  ‘Hi, Fred. I’ll ring you back in five – I’m driving.’ In his policing days, Daniel had had to deal with the horrific consequences of distracted drivers too often to take a chance, even if it hadn’t been illegal. Finding a place to pull in, he killed the engine and keyed in the number.

  ‘Hi. What’s up?’

  ‘Daniel, I’ve had a call from some bloke who wants to talk to you. Apparently, his daughters went for a walk on the moor and haven’t come back, and he wants to know if you and Taz will help look for them. Saw the bit in the paper, obviously …’


  ‘But surely he should call Search and Rescue.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I said. Anyway, will you talk to him? Can I give him your number?’

  ‘Er … yeah, OK, I guess so,’ Daniel said reluctantly. Even though he’d been rueing the prospect of the evening ahead, the idea of being sent out of his way to pander to a hysterical parent whose kids would in all probability turn up without his help wasn’t one he particularly relished either.

  He disconnected, and a minute or two later, his phone sounded again.

  ‘Is that Mr Whelan?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Daniel agreed. ‘Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘John. John Reynolds.’ The man sounded a little out of breath, as if he were walking.

  ‘How can I help you, Mr Reynolds?’

  ‘It’s my daughters – they went walking on the moor and they haven’t come back. I’ve looked for them, but it’s hopeless. I’ve no idea which way they went. I read about your dog in the paper the other day – please, you must help me!’ Reynolds spoke English very precisely, but as he became more agitated, Daniel could hear just the hint of a foreign lilt.

  ‘Look, obviously I’d be very willing to help you, but I really think you should contact the police. They’ll get on to Dartmoor Search and Rescue – it’s their job, after all.’

  ‘Yes, I tried them, but they say it’s too soon and we should wait and see if they come back. But I’m really worried, Mr Whelan. It’ll be getting dark soon, and it’s cold and wet, and Elena’s not very strong …’

  ‘How long have they been gone?’ Daniel was surprised at the attitude of the police. He’d not lived in the area for long but was already well aware of the respect the locals rightly accorded the moor, especially in winter.

  ‘About forty minutes. But we’re here on holiday, so they don’t know the area at all, and they’re not dressed for the weather. Look …’ Reynolds hesitated ‘… the truth is, Mr Whelan, we had a bit of a row. Katya, the older one, is a moody girl – you know, typical teenager – and I’m afraid she might have run away to teach me a lesson. Her sister would follow her anywhere.’