Dancing On the Grave Read online

  DANCING ON THE GRAVE

  a standalone crime thriller from the award-winning author of the Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox series

  * * *

  A sniper with a mission…

  a young cop with nothing to lose…

  a CSI with everything to prove…

  a teenage girl with a terrifying obsession…

  * * *

  In one of the most beautiful corners of England

  something very ugly is about to take place.

  * * *

  There’s a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the calm of an English summer is shattered.

  For newly qualified Crime Scene Investigator Grace McColl, it’s both the start of a nightmare and the chance to prove herself after a mistake that cost a life.

  For Detective Constable Nick Weston, recently transferred from London, it’s an opportunity to recover his nerve after a disastrous undercover operation left him for dead.

  And for a lonely, loveless girl, Edith, it’s the beginning of a twisted fantasy—one she never dreamed might come true.

  “Like Ravel’s ‘Bolero’, Dancing on the Grave hooks you with incredible magnetism, builds with irresistible tension and then holds you close for a superb climax. High quality entertainment from an accomplished writer.”

  —Matt Johnson, bestselling author of the DI Robert Finlay thrillers

  “I’m used to cool, hard killers—in fiction that is—but I don’t think I’ve ever come across a cool, hard killer as vulnerable as Edith Airey… Bisley-grade crack-shot, she could drop you at half a mile…yet she’s seventeen, the only, lonely child of a dysfunctional family (otherwise known as having a slob for a father) in one of the wilder corners of a wild England. Now…read on…”

  —John Lawton, bestselling author of the Joe Wilderness and the Inspector Troy thrillers

  “Zoë Sharp is the best-kept secret in crime fiction, it’s about time that changed. Miss this at your peril.”

  —Stuart MacBride, bestselling author of the DS Logan McRae crime thrillers, on Second Shot

  Dancing On The Grave

  Zoë Sharp

  Praise for Zoë Sharp

  ‘Scarily good.’ Lee Child

  ‘Sharp is part of a very small group of writers who actually talks the talk and walks the walk. She really knows this stuff and so when she writes it, it feels more real than most non-fiction books. Sharp deserves a genre all her own.’ Jon Jordan, CrimeSpree Magazine

  ‘Zoë Sharp is one of the sharpest, coolest, and most intriguing writers I know. She delivers dramatic, action-packed novels with characters we really care about.’ Harlan Coben, bestselling author of TELL NO ONE

  ‘Male and female crime fiction readers alike will find Sharp’s writing style addictively readable.’ Paul Goat Allen, Chicago Tribune

  ‘Zoë Sharp is a master at writing thoughtful action thrillers,’ Meg Gardiner, bestselling author of UNSUB

  ‘This is hard-edged fiction at its best.’ Michele Leber, Booklist starred review for FIFTH VICTIM

  ‘I loved every word of this brilliant, mind-twisting thriller and even yelped out loud at one of the genius twists.’ bestselling author Elizabeth Haynes on THE BLOOD WHISPERER

  ‘Sharp is a writer of extraordinary skill.’ Maggie Mason, Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, Rating A

  ‘Superb.’ Ken Bruen, bestselling author of the Jack Taylor series, THE GUARDS, BLITZ

  ‘Zoë Sharp has an apt last name. She delivers yet another sleek, sharp thriller.’ David Morrell, bestselling author of FIRST BLOOD

  ‘If you don't like Zoë Sharp there's something wrong with you. Go and live in a cave and get the hell out of my gene pool! There are few writers who go right to the top of my TBR pile—Zoë Sharp is one of them.’ Stuart MacBride, bestselling author of the Logan McRae series

  ‘Well, holy sh*tballs! What a book!...an intense, compelling and totally engrossing read.’ Noelle Holten, CrimeBookJunkie, 5/5 on FOX HUNTER

  Also by Zoë Sharp

  the Charlie Fox series

  KILLER INSTINCT: book one

  RIOT ACT: book two

  HARD KNOCKS: book three

  A TRIPLE SHOT OF CHARLIE FOX: e-box set

  FIRST DROP: book four

  ROAD KILL: book five

  SECOND SHOT: book six

  ANOTHER ROUND OF CHARLIE FOX: e-box set

  THIRD STRIKE: book seven

  FOURTH DAY: book eight

  FIFTH VICTIM: book nine

  FOX FIVE: Charlie Fox short story collection

  DIE EASY: book ten

  ABSENCE OF LIGHT: book eleven

  FOX HUNTER: book twelve

  TRIAL UNDER FIRE: prequel

  standalones

  THE BLOOD WHISPERER

  AN ITALIAN JOB (with John Lawton)

  DANCING ON THE GRAVE

  For more information on Zoë Sharp’s writing,

  see her website: www.ZoeSharp.com

  Part I

  1

  It is a bad day to die…a perfect one to kill.

  The sniper lies in cover towards the upper northeastern edge of the valley. His right eye is up close behind the ten-power scope attached to the receiver of the rifle. He is watching a massacre as it unfolds below him.

  Between heartbeats, he tightens his forefinger round the trigger.

  As he does so, the killer jerks back, a pink mist spraying from his torso. Lifeless limbs flail as he sprawls into the long grass. The crack of the report reaches the sniper’s ears a fraction of a second later. He flinches. He checks the scope, knowing the target is down. Knowing the kill is good.

  Knowing, too, that he did not fire the shot…

  2

  It was Grace’s habit to approach death the same way she approached life, with calm deliberation and an open mind. And while others might mistake that detachment for coldness, she reserved her compassion for more private moments.

  She knew she would weep over the scene of carnage laid out before her, but it would be later, alone. Not now. Wailing at the graveside helped nobody, least of all the departed.

  So she paused a little way back from the body and waited for the signs of death to speak to her, as she knew they would. First in half-caught whispers then louder, more stridently. Grace was patient, and three years as a Crime Scene Investigator had made her a good listener.

  She stood easy, with the strap of the Canon digital camera over her shoulder, her head tilted to tune out the raised voices behind her. The farmer, arguing with the pair of uniforms who’d been first on scene. The bereaved, shouting for retribution.

  And she stood motionless, casting a long shadow. It was still early enough for the sun to be climbing steeply and the dew sparked and shimmered on the spider webs in the grass at her feet. Ever since her childhood Grace had loved the ethereal light at this time of day.

  Around her, the flies had already begun to feast. Blowflies—always the first to gather—drawn by the irresistible scent of blood, thick in the air. Grace hardly noticed. There were six corpses lying in the field. She’d studied each in turn but only one arrested her attention.

  This one.

  It was different from the others, not least in the manner of its death. The body lay stretched out on one side with the head thrown back, the teeth bared in defiance. Beneath one outflung limb Grace could see the blackened circle of the undoubtedly fatal gunshot wound to the chest, although at this stage she took nothing at face value.

  “What a waste,” she murmured.

  “Come on, Grace,” said a voice behind her. “It’s only a dog.”

  She turned, found the younger of the two uniformed PCs at her elbow, Danny Robertshaw, cradling the farmer’s confiscated shotgun. When she didn’t re
spond he waved his free hand towards the other bodies. “And look at the number of lambs it savaged. Had it coming, if you ask me.”

  “Perhaps.” Born in the country, Grace well knew the usual response towards any dog caught worrying livestock. Although, ‘worrying’ was putting it mildly. “But if it’s so clear-cut Daniel, why did you need me?”

  Robertshaw coloured, a ruddy flush that stained a neck still raw from the morning’s hasty shave. He ducked closer, lowering his voice.

  “Because of them two.” His eyes shifted to the couple. “They were screaming blue murder when they rang it in.” He shrugged unhappily. “Turns out they’ve got some clout.”

  “And since when has Cumbria Constabulary been operating a two-tier policing system?” Grace asked lightly. “One law for the locals and another for the incomers, is it?”

  He wouldn’t meet her gaze, suddenly fascinated by a hangnail at the side of his thumb. “You know how it is, Grace. You, of all people.”

  Do I? She tried not to let that sting, instead asked, “You’ll be sure to take a sample of the spare cartridges for comparison, won’t you?”

  “For what it’s worth,” the young policeman grunted. “But old Know-It-All Airey reckons the shotgun’s not been fired for days.”

  Grace paused in the act of retrieving an evidence bag from her kit, eyebrow raised. He flushed again. “I’ve nothing against hobby bobbies as a rule,” he said in a rush. “We need ’em when things are tight. It’s just Airey who winds me up. Wrong temperament for the job.”

  As a civilian attached to the police, Grace stayed out of station politics as much as she was able, but the superior, swaggering attitude of volunteer Special Constable Jim Airey had reached her ears, even so. A bully, who abused his position to throw his weight around—and there was certainly plenty of that.

  Nevertheless, his day job as a butcher’s assistant hardened him to the sight of blood and bone. He hadn’t flinched at today’s scene, and she knew he was often sent to the nastier smashes on the motorway that snaked up the eastern border of the county, revelling in his own unshockable reputation.

  Without comment, Grace nudged the shotgun upwards and, mindful where she put her face, sniffed the end of the barrels. Oil and metal and dust, overlaid with the faint ammonia smell of manure.

  “Mm, in this instance I would agree with him.” She bagged the gun. “But we should still follow procedure, don’t you think? You’d better ask Mr Airey to make a perimeter sweep.” Her voice was grave even as her lips twitched. “Cast his expert eye over the scene, as it were.”

  Robertshaw let his eyes roam the sizeable length of dry stone wall that bordered the field, at his colleague’s generous girth as the man stood with feet arrogantly apart, between the owners of the dog and the field gate as though to prevent their escape.

  The youngster grinned, suddenly not looking old enough to drive, never mind put on the uniform. He reminded her of the cheeky little boy with skinned knees he’d been back when she used to babysit him as a teenager.

  “Right you are, Grace.”

  Grace unshouldered her camera, began quartering the view from the body. It was standard practice at any crime scene, allowing the victim’s position to be precisely located long after the scene was cleared.

  In this case, the view was of the squat lime-washed tower of All Saints Church peering through the trees to the south—the only visible part of Orton village itself. To the northeast, the road climbed towards the Scar, an expanse of windswept limestone pavement populated mainly by the hardy local sheep.

  “Excuse me, but how much longer is this going to take?”

  She turned, saw the couple who’d called in the death of their dog approaching. They were late middle-age, dressed in casually expensive clothes that to Grace’s eye indicated a long and comfortable association with money.

  It was the man who’d spoken. Tall, wiry, he had the whippy build of a long-distance runner, staring her down over a hawk-like nose. His voice was clipped with impatience and something that Grace recognised as unease.

  “I’m going as fast as is prudent,” she said pleasantly, and glanced at the returning Robertshaw. “I assume we have someone with authorised Firearms experience on their way out to this one, Daniel? You could ask the control room to divert an ARV if there are any in the area.”

  Several of the Cumbria force motorway patrol cars doubled as Armed Response Vehicles. Considering most of the Traffic boys seemed to think they were the next Lewis Hamilton in waiting, the chances were one could be on-scene without delay.

  “Better than that.” Robertshaw was smiling broadly. “They’re sending down that new hotshot DC to show us how they train ’em in the big city.”

  “Surely it isn’t necessary to keep us here all morning?” The woman nodded to the bagged shotgun the young PC still cradled under his arm, and slid her eyes meaningfully to the farmer, sitting on a mud-splattered quad bike only a few metres away. “We all know who killed poor Ben.”

  The farmer glared at that. He was a big thickset man, leaning with his elbows on the quad’s fuel tank as he watched the scene play out. His reddened hands dangled loosely to reveal cracked knuckles misshapen by decades of hard work in all weather. Crouched sideways on the seat behind him, tongue lolling, was a wall-eyed Border collie.

  “I didn’t shoot ’im,” the farmer said, gruff but without rancour. “Not that I wouldn’t ’ave done, mind. Losing this many lambs at one go, it takes the profit right out of the year. ’Course I would ’ave shot ’im, if I’d got ’ere sooner. But somebody beat me to it, and tha’s a fact.”

  The woman let out a pinched breath, her lips hardening into a narrow line. Grace recalled a teacher at her long-ago boarding school with a mouth like that.

  “Regardless of who shot poor Ben”—the man forced a thin smile—“it’s clear what happened here. I’m prepared to make full restitution.”

  Ah, you’ve changed your tune. Grace saw Robertshaw stiffen as though a bribe had been offered.

  “We have a duty to investigate, sir,” he said, aiming for stern but quailing under the couple’s withering stare.

  The woman had drawn breath to launch into some stinging tirade when they heard the sound of an engine approaching at speed. Grace caught a glimpse of something bright blue and sporty as it braked to a showy halt by the gateway.

  “New bloke,” Robertshaw muttered.

  “Well,” the woman said. “Now we might actually get somewhere.”

  Grace turned away, glad of something to refocus their attention, then paused, mentally backtracking.

  What hotshot new DC? She frowned after Robertshaw’s departing figure, but her attention was already back on the body of the dog.

  “Since it patently wasn’t the farmer who shot you,” she murmured, “let’s hope this city boy is all he’s cracked up to be…”

  3

  Detective Constable Nick Weston was in a vile temper and drove accordingly.

  His car usually responded to being pushed hard. The Subaru was his weakness, a sop to the last remnants of the boy racer in him. Much as he knew the WRX model wasn’t helping him integrate into the hierarchy at his latest posting, he couldn’t bring himself to part with it.

  Might have to, soon, though.

  For once, even thrashing down the motorway failed to lighten his black mood. He’d covered the eighteen miles of M6 from Penrith down to Tebay in a shade over eleven minutes, rarely dropping below a hundred. Good job none of the miserable lot from Traffic were patrolling that stretch or they’d have nicked him for it.

  But maybe he was being taken seriously at last. The uniformed sergeant who’d found him skulking over paperwork in the CID office at the Hunter Lane station said the shout was a suspicious death out near Orton, a possible shooting, that the on-scene CSI was calling for an expert assist.

  “Everybody else’s out,” she’d said, her flat tone making it clear he was her last resort, “but you used to be with the shoot ’em up boys, did
n’t you, detective constable?”

  “Used to be.”

  She raised a cynical eyebrow at this reticence. “Well then, I thought it might be right up your street—you being a city lad.” She sniffed. “Saw enough gun crime down there in Manchester and London, didn’t you?”

  Nick attempted to shake off his misery as he got to his feet. “Right, I’m on my way.” He’d tried what he hoped was a placatory smile. “And…thanks. Wendy, isn’t it?”

  That earned him another sniff. “I think ‘sergeant’ will do just fine.”

  Still, it was good to know that the two years Nick had spent with Armed Response had some ongoing benefit after all, even if he’d let his Firearms ticket lapse when he moved up out of uniform. Perhaps something might actually be salvaged from this disastrous career cul-de-sac.

  Now, Nick almost missed the gateway to the field where this supposed shooting had taken place. He’d been accelerating up the long climb out of Orton village and had to brake hard when he spotted the marked-up Ford Focus sitting half-hidden behind some galumphing great pickup truck on the verge.

  “What the hell are they playing at?” Nick muttered. Surely by now this unknown CSI should have arranged some marker for the investigation team?

  When Nick joined the force, Scenes Of Crime Officers—he couldn’t get used to calling them CSIs—came from the ranks. They had years of experience at the sharp end of policing. Not like these bloody amateurs. A quick day-release college course and they thought they were God’s gift to forensic science.

  He left the Subaru as far off the road as he could, paused at the unguarded gateway to note with irritation the presence of three obvious civilians in the middle of the field. The vicious headache that had plagued him all morning returned to pulse behind his right eye.