Traitor in the House

  Traitor in the House

  Caz Finlay

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

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  Copyright © Caz Finlay 2021

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  Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

  Cover photographs © plainpicture/TOBSN (woman) and Steve Samosa/EyeEm/Getty Images (background)

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  Caz Finlay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008463335

  Ebook Edition © July 2021 ISBN: 9780008463328

  Version: 2021-06-10

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading…

  You will also love…

  About the Author

  Also by Caz Finlay

  One More Chapter...

  About the Publisher

  For all of my readers, for making my dreams come true!

  Chapter One

  DI Leigh Moss watched as the forensics team processed the crime scene. Their painstaking work would ensure the preservation of any evidence and, if luck was on their side, find something that would point them to the killer. Although Leigh didn’t hold out much hope. This was the third murder in a month with the same MO, and so far they didn’t have a scrap of evidence to identify the killer. What they did have was a serial killer who was targeting working girls.

  After the second victim had been found two weeks earlier, the DCI from the Major Investigation Team had approached Leigh to collaborate on the investigation. Both victims had been well known to Leigh’s Phoenix team, Merseyside Police’s specialist rape and sexual offences unit, and both had also once been residents of Sunnymeade children’s home. Sunnymeade had been closed down only two years earlier after an undercover investigation revealed a scandal of systematic abuse going back decades.

  The latest victim, Nerys Sheehan, was also a former Sunnymeade resident. A young woman of twenty-one, with ash-blonde hair and eyes the colour of steel. She was as thin as a rake, and the couple of times Leigh had previously met her she’d had the urge to force a good pan of scouse down her. Nerys had been a likeable girl, with a dry sense of humour and an easy-going manner. After she’d ended up in A&E one time too many, one of the Police Constables from the unit had put her in touch with a local refuge. Nerys had managed to get clean and sort herself out, but it had only lasted a few short months before her pimp found her, and had her back on crack and back on the game within the week.

  Leigh’s heart broke when she thought about some of the women and girls they saw on a day-to-day basis. Each of them had a story to tell. All had been victims of some form of abuse, usually at the hands of the very people who were supposed to protect them. When she’d resigned from the Organised Crime task force, Leigh had planned to join the high volume crime team and spend the next part of her career dealing with burglaries and thefts. It had been her way of trying to minimise her usefulness to Grace Carter and her family now that she was even further indebted to the woman. A few months earlier, Grace and her firm had rescued DS Nick Bryce, Leigh’s then boyfriend, from the clutches of an Essex gangster by the name of Alastair McGrath, who would have surely killed Nick if he’d had his way. But when the Assistant Chief Constable had approached her himself, and told her there was an opening in for a DI in the Phoenix team, she hadn’t felt able to say no. Before she’d become a police officer, and after Grace had saved her from being murdered by Nathan Conlon, Leigh had worked with victims of sexual abuse and it was a cause still close to her heart. Whilst many people looked at a working girl and simply saw a prostitute, or a drug addict with loose morals, Leigh saw a woman who had survived through nightmares that such people couldn’t even comprehend.

  Thankfully, most of her colleagues in Phoenix thought the same way, and they did the best they could for the women they came into contact with. But for the most part, their best was never enough, and certainly not in the case of young Nerys or the other two young women who had met a similar fate. Leigh shuddered as she recalled her own past and how a few more months as Nathan Conlon’s mistress might have led her down a similar path. Nathan was Grace’s ex-husband and he had once been one of Liverpool’s biggest gangsters. He had been as vicious as he was charming. Leigh had fallen for him hard and had thought her world had ended when he’d tossed her aside as soon as he’d got bored of her, as he’d done with most women. As much as she’d like to, Leigh could never forget just how much she had to thank Grace Carter for.

  But there was one thing Nerys had in her favour, if you could call it that now that she was lying cold and broken on the ground just a few feet away. During a brief stint when Nerys’s pimp had been inside and she’d managed to get herself off the crack, she’d worked at a knocking shop on the dock road – the aptly named Number 69. The place was well known to the Phoenix team. It was a well-established Liverpool institution that had been around since the Sixties. Leigh’s team raided the place from time to time, but for the most part, the punters and the employees of Number 69 caused little trouble and the management generally looked after their employees, ensuring they were paid a fair wage and worked in good conditions. It was a much safer place to work than the cold, hard streets of Liverpool.

  It was often said that prostitution was the oldest occupation around and
Leigh knew that there was no way of eradicating it entirely. Unfortunately, so long as women and girls were seen as a commodity, there would be men, because it was largely men, who would exploit that fact for their own ends. Places like Number 69 at least allowed some semblance of safety and enabled the girls to earn a decent income, and for that reason, Leigh and her team were willing to focus their attentions elsewhere. And with budget cuts, as well as policing some of the most deprived wards in the country, their attentions were always needed elsewhere. They never seemed to have the manpower or enough hours in the day to deal with everything that Liverpool’s seedy underbelly threw at them.

  The vibration of her mobile phone pulled Leigh from her thoughts. Pulling it out of her pocket, she glanced at the screen to see Grace Carter’s number. Leigh answered it quickly. As much as it went against every instinct she had as a detective, she knew that if anyone could help her to shed some light on this case, it was Grace Carter – and Leigh was about to give her a reason to.

  ‘Grace, thanks for calling me back,’ Leigh answered.

  ‘No problem. What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s delicate. Can I call round?’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘Not for me. But you’re usually very reluctant to come to the house. Is this something I need to be worried about?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Leigh started. ‘Probably not. To be honest, Grace, I need your help.’

  There was a moment’s pause and Leigh could imagine Grace frowning as she considered her request. If she refused then Leigh would have to mention the link between young Nerys and the Carter family, but she would rather do that in person if she could. The last thing she wanted was for Grace to go into defence mode before Leigh had even had a chance to plead her case.

  ‘Okay,’ Grace finally responded. ‘Will tonight do? The kids will be in bed by eight. Call round then.’

  ‘That would be great. I’ve got things I need to attend to here anyway. And thanks.’

  ‘No problem. See you later,’ Grace replied before ending the call.

  Leigh slipped her phone back into her inside pocket and made her way back towards the crime scene as she saw one of the forensics signalling her. Her DS, Mark Whitney, was already there, peering at the victim’s arm as the forensic officer held it outstretched.

  ‘What is it?’ Leigh asked as she reached the two of them.

  ‘We can’t be sure, Ma’am. But it looks like a tooth,’ Mark answered.

  ‘A tooth?’ Leigh echoed as she brought her face closer to inspect the small white fragment which was embedded in a welt on the victim’s wrist. ‘Could it be our killer’s? It’s tiny. Is it a fragment?’

  The forensic shook his head. ‘We’ll confirm when we do the post-mortem. But it looks like it’s a child’s.’

  Leigh’s blood ran cold. ‘A child’s tooth? What the hell?’ she said with a sigh.

  Mark shook his head. ‘No idea, Ma’am.’

  ‘She didn’t have kids, did she?’ Leigh asked, wondering if that was a snippet of information she’d forgotten.

  Mark shook his head. ‘Nope. Not as far as we know anyway.’

  ‘Well, let’s wait and see,’ Leigh said to the forensic, who nodded and then resumed his work with his colleagues. ‘In the meantime, check missing persons and make sure there are no kids missing too,’ she said to Mark. ‘God forbid.’

  ‘Will do,’ Mark replied as his own mobile phone started to ring and he slipped away to answer it.

  Leigh closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This case got more sinister with each victim. There had never been any hint of any children involved up until now. She wondered if there was a perfectly innocent and reasonable explanation for the deceased to have a child’s tooth embedded in her wrist when she was murdered – but couldn’t think of a single one.

  Chapter Two

  Grace put her phone on the coffee table and sat back against the sofa as she watched her husband Michael rolling around with their two youngest children, Belle and Oscar, and the newest addition to the family, their rescue Boxer dog, Bruce. She smiled absent-mindedly as she listened to their giggles. They loved nothing more than a game of Doctor Belle and her ticklish dinosaurs – a game which Belle had made up at the age of two and still three years later insisted on playing at every available opportunity. Oscar was by far the most ticklish of her dinosaurs, but Dr Belle could give him a run for his money.

  ‘You okay, love?’ Michael asked as he sat up, slightly breathless from his exertions. When Grace had seen the missed call from Leigh on her phone, she had left the game, and although she’d intended to return, the call had unsettled her and she realised she’d been staring into space for the past few moments. It was very unlike Leigh to want to visit them at home. On the one previous occasion she’d had cause to be there, at Grace’s request, she had fidgeted the whole time.

  Grace looked at her husband. ‘Yes. I think so anyway. That was Leigh Moss. She wants to call round later.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked with a frown as he stood up, brushing the dog hair from his trousers.

  ‘She didn’t say exactly. Just that she needs my help.’

  Michael walked over and sat beside her on the sofa, leaving Belle, Oscar and Bruce to continue playing without him. ‘Anything we need to be worried about?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. She’s going to call about eight after the kids are in bed.’

  ‘Does that mean I’m making dinner again?’ he said as he leaned back and put an arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Well, you are a much better cook than me,’ Grace replied.

  ‘True.’

  She gave him a playful nudge in the ribs. ‘Don’t get cocky, Carter,’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘Me? As if.’ He returned her smile before kissing her on the forehead. Then he jumped up from the sofa. ‘I’d better get going or I’ll be late.’ He picked up his coat from the back of the armchair and put it on.

  ‘Be careful, won’t you?’ she said to him.

  He walked back over to her and took hold of her chin in his hand. ‘I always am,’ he replied before kissing her again, this time on the lips. ‘I’ll be back before bath-time,’ he said softly.

  ‘Mine or the kids?’ Grace replied with a smile, feeling the need to lighten the mood.

  Michael grinned at her. ‘Both. Most definitely both.’ Then with a final kiss, he shouted goodbye to the kids before walking out of the door.

  Michael climbed out of his Aston Martin and zipped up his Barbour coat as he walked across the road to the waiting transit van. He banged on the side as he reached it and the door was slid open.

  ‘Evening, Son,’ he said with a smile as he came face to face with his son Connor.

  ‘All right, Dad,’ Connor said with a smile before stepping aside and allowing Michael to climb in.

  Michael sat on the wooden bench beside his stepson Jake and put an arm around his shoulder. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Sound.’

  ‘Good,’ Michael said as he looked at the bench opposite him and saw his business associates, Luke Sullivan and Danny Alexander, sitting quietly, holding baseball bats in their hands. Michael nodded to them both in greeting.

  ‘We ready to go then?’ Michael asked as Connor slid the van door closed again.

  ‘Almost. One more pick-up, lads,’ Connor shouted to the two men in the front of the van, whom Michael knew to be John Brennan and Jack Murphy – two of his and Grace’s most trusted employees. Connor sat down beside him as the van moved away from the kerb. Michael leaned back and closed his eyes. It wasn’t often he accompanied his sons on ventures like this any more. Especially not since Luke and Danny had joined the firm. They were the new Managing Directors of Cartel Securities and were already proving themselves to be assets. They were hard as nails and they were loyal. They worked closely with Connor and Jake and in a few short months had made themselves indispensable. Michael and Grace liked the fact t
hat Luke and Danny could be trusted to have Jake and Connor’s backs. It made them both able to sleep more easily at night.

  This evening, Michael was tagging along because an old enemy had shown up and had made a play for some of their doors in the city centre. Joey Parnell had been a face back in the Nineties, long before Michael had been involved in the security game, but when he had worked for the likes of Sol Shepherd and Nathan Conlon. Parnell was a horrible cunt who would sell his own granny for the right price. Michael and his brother Sean had had numerous run-ins with Parnell and his lads back in the day, but over the years Parnell’s firm had been outmanned and sidelined by the bigger and smarter companies that had taken over Liverpool. But now Parnell was back, and was slowly growing his empire again, making alliances with small two-bit factions across Merseyside who couldn’t hope to make a mark on their own, and turning them into his personal little army. Now that Parnell and his new firm had made a move on some of Cartel’s doors, it was time to slap them down before things got out of hand.