Silencing the Dead by Will Harker (ereader ebook .txt) 📕

of two English counties as I reached the midpoint of the bridge. It painted the estuary landscape of Essex and Kent a liquid red, transforming the turgid ribbon of the Thames into a single pulsating artery. Down this bloody channel flew clots of darkness, defining themselves momentarily into seabirds that soared between the stanchions of the bridge before flowing on into the great heart of London.

At the far side of the Dartford Crossing, I lost the light and passed into the shadows of the motorway. Tallis had given me few details regarding Thorn’s murder, saying only that he’d meet me at the dead publicist’s house, just outside the town of Tunbridge Wells. Despite hardly having slept, I was filled with the nervous, skittish energy that always came in the closing hours of a case. So much remained unclear but still, I sensed, that whatever the killer’s ultimate purpose, the final threads of it were being drawn together. I only hoped that Nick Holloway wouldn’t find himself enmeshed in the web.

Before setting out from Purley, I had run into Deepal in the carpark. I’d thought she might still be annoyed with me for having tricked my way into an interview with Everwood, but the PA looked as if she had other things on her mind. Her hair was back in that severe bun and there were already coffee stains on the sleeve of her jacket.

“You’re up and about early, Miss Chandra,” I said.

She glanced towards the Ghost Seekers’ production trailers. “The whole crew will be arriving in a couple of hours, then the chaos will really begin. I’ll need to touch base with your father, by the way, just to make sure he knows the timing for when we go live. It’s looking like our catering has hit a snag, so we might need to commandeer some of your food trucks. Oh, and now Darrel’s insisting he needs time alone before the broadcast to ‘attune with the spirits.’ God. Makeup is going to love that.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, it doesn’t sound like you enjoy your job very much. I wonder why you do it?”

Deepal looked at me curiously. “You see a lot, Mr Jericho, but I promise you, I take my work here very seriously. I only wish others did the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seb Thorn, Darrel’s manager for one. The night before the biggest broadcast in Ghost Seekers’ history and he wasn’t answering his phone. Darrel started fretting about some production detail or another and needed the old man’s reassurance. In the end, things got so stressed I suggested sending Nick over to Seb’s to see what was going on.”

I nodded, remembering Nick being flagged down by the constables in the carpark at around midnight. Glancing over at the driveway, I now saw an empty space where the Bentley was usually parked.

“Nick’s still not back?” I asked.

“No, and now he’s not picking up either,” Deepal sighed. “Still, I suppose if he got to Seb’s and couldn’t get an answer at the door, he might simply have turned around and started back. If so, he could be here any minute.”

We both looked towards the forest road as if the Bentley might reappear by magic.

“But you’ve been calling him?”

“The hands-free system in the car has been glitching.” She shrugged. “He might not be able to answer. It also doesn’t help that Seb is deaf as a post. He could have fallen asleep before twelve and not heard Nick banging at the door.”

I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t for me to tell her that the co-creator of Ghost Seekers had been ritualistically murdered sometime in the past few hours. I doubted it would improve her stress levels anyway. What concerned me from that point on was the consequences for Nick. He’d been desperate to shrug off the shadows of his former life and make a new start, far away from the jealous, violent clutches of mobster Mark Noonan. For Nick, I think this had been more than just a break with the immediate past. In the form of Noonan, he had discovered another possessive, abusive parent figure to replace the father he’d escaped back in Hull. Wanting to finally end that cycle for good, he’d begged me not to expose his background to Everwood. I now worried that Nick’s choice in the matter may have been taken from him.

The rush hour traffic was starting to hit gridlock when I eased off the motorway and passed into Kent’s leafy suburbs. Even in deepest autumn, the county clung to its reputation as the Garden of England. Fields and churchyards bustling with maple and rowan, blueberry bushes crowding against a gatepost, the light on their leaves reminding me of the marigolds in Garris’ garden. The only marker for a killer’s grave.

I had parked up at the end of an isolated lane when my phone pinged with a message. It was from Sal. Where are you? Look Scott, even if this means you never talk to me again—you MUST call Harry. I’ve spoken to him—told him what you told me yesterday. There’s so much you don’t know, so—call him!

“Scott? Thank you for coming.”

I looked up to find Tallis striding towards me. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I shook his outstretched hand. Whatever Sal was going on about, it could wait.

“Have you been inside already?” I asked, looking to the house at the end of the lane.

The home of Sebastian Thorn was as impressive, in its way, as that of his old client, Genevieve Bell. The styles were very different. Instead of a modernist mansion of steel and glass, Thorn’s residence was a Tudor fantasia complete with a thatched roof, a jutting timber frame to support the overhanging first floor, and small lead lattice windows. It stood by itself in acres of almost treeless land, no neighbour in sight.

In a SOCO tent outside the front door, Tallis and I donned Tyvek suits and the rest of the forensic paraphernalia before signing our names