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  MUMMY’S FAVOURITE

  Sarah Flint

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.aria-fiction.com

  About Mummy’s Favourite

  He’s watching… He’s waiting… Who’s next?

  Buried in a woodland grave are a mother and her child. One is alive. One is dead.

  DC ‘Charlie’ Stafford is assigned by her boss, DI Geoffrey Hunter to assist with the missing persons investigation.

  As more pairs go missing, the pressure mounts. Leads are going cold. Suspects are identified but have they got the right person? Can Charlie stop the sadistic killer whose only wish is to punish those he deems to have committed a wrong. Or will she herself unwittingly become a victim.

  A gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller, introducing new series character DC Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Stafford of London Metropolitan Police.

  To my Mum and Dad, Stan and Sylvia, who died many years ago before I had even attempted story-telling.

  They were very much in my mind on the day I received the formal publishing offer for this book. My father would have been 100 years old on that very day in April 2016. It was also the 20th anniversary of my mother passing, joining Dad on his birthday.

  I believe it was no coincidence that my hopes should be realised at the same time they were foremost in my thoughts. I wish they were still alive to share my happiness now.

  Contents

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  About Mummy’s Favourite

  Dedication

  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

  Acknowledgements

  About Sarah Flint

  Become an Aria Addict

  Copyright

  Prologue

  It was cold under the floorboards. Cold, sticky and wet. And so very dark. Pitch-black almost. Only the tiniest chink of light. Not enough to give her a clue as to where she was.

  Julie Hubbard tried to speak but the thick cloth around her mouth prevented any movement of her dry, cracked lips. Only a thin whimper in the blackness could escape briefly before the sound died in the tiny cavity in which she lay. She moved her tongue and felt the cold liquid fill her mouth. Water. Cool, thirst-quenching, life-prolonging. She gulped it down, moving her tongue again to cover the small tube sticking through the cloth, knowing instinctively that this was her only hope of survival. She didn’t dare drink the water too quickly. It had to be rationed, eked out slowly. She didn’t know how long she was going to be there. She didn’t know anything in fact.

  She tried to shift herself carefully. Every muscle hurt. A wad of bedding underneath her body took away some of the cold and discomfort, but her body felt stiff and achy from lying in the same position. Her head pounded in time with her breath, each temple following the same rhythmic pulse. She could barely move her limbs; they were bound together with cord, wrapped around and around and around her wrists and ankles. She could just wriggle her fingers and toes to keep them from getting numb, but that was all. Her fingernails scraped the dirt from the backs of the floor-boards but there was little room to squirm, never mind to bang against the wooden planks. She didn’t know where she was but she knew it was remote, away from civilization, away from help. She was on her own. Or was she?

  Every sense was heightened now as the muzziness wore off. The air around her was dank, claustrophobic, sweet smelling. It was earthy, musty, but with occasional wafts of cooler, fresher fragrances that slipped in through the gaps. The darkness too was slightly less black and cloying at these tiny spaces. She pushed her body up against the chinks but the boards refused to move, the gaps disappearing into her clothing, a sense of panic overwhelming her at the loss of even these tiny symbols of escape.

  She tried to move sideways but the hardness of the impacted earth stopped any further movement. She shifted the other way and her body met something softer. Squirming towards it she managed to twist herself slightly so that her hands touched the softness. She could feel clothing, a belt buckle, flesh. She pulled herself up as close as she could so that she was half facing the form. Her hair slipped across her face into the wetness she had felt earlier. It was sticky and smelt strangely sweet. She wanted to taste it but she daren’t. A familiar smell wafted into her nostrils. A smell that she recognized from home, the scent of grown-up children, the scent of boy to man aftershave.

  The pounding in her temples grew harder. She strained to see through the pitch-black but there was nothing. From somewhere far away she heard the sound of undergrowth being kicked and stamped upon. The noise was getting louder, joining forces with the noise inside her head, pumping and stamping and pumping. She tried to scream but no sound came out, just the gurgling of the water as it moved down the tube. She swallowed noisily and coughed. Then the pounding was joined by light, streaming all around her, surrounding her as the boards were moved away. She screwed her eyes up as the torchlight bathed her in cold, clammy sweat. Fear, ice-cold and debilitating, stopped her breath as she struggled to make sense of what was happening. She could see nothing but bright light burning into her retinas. Everything behind was shadow. She craned her neck round at the person beside her, wanting to know who they were but fearing the answer. She knew already. She had smelled him. She remembered now. As she opened her eyes, she heard the voice. It was a smiling voice, melancholy, sing-song, pleased with what she was looking at. Laughing at what she was looking at.

  And as she recognized the soft curves of her youngest son, Richard’s handsome dead face, she saw the vivid red, yawning gash sliced into the soft skin of his neck and the wetness of his blood in her hair and across her shoulders. She heard the voice louder now, mocking her.

  ‘Mummy’s favourite. Mummy’s favourite.’

  Chapter 1

  It didn’t take long to remove her from the building. Every photo, every item of clothing, every single thing that would remind him of what she looked like, what she sounded like, what she smelled like.

  He dropped to the floor and sprayed disinfectant across her favourite spots; the bedside table where she placed her phone, along with the glass of water and the book that she always read at night, when he was trying to sleep. She didn’t give a shit about him.

  He pulled the sheets back and a waft of her cheap body spray hit his nostrils. How he hated that scent, Impulse, used by her each day, in preference to the expensive perfume he had given her for Christmas. His gift lay disregarded at the back of the dressing table gathering dust, like everything about their relationship. He yanked the sheets off the bed, bal
ling them up and throwing them at the door. The mattress still held traces of her smell. He sprayed it with fabric freshener. He hated her smell.

  The clothes and shoes took more space than he’d thought, bin bag after bin bag full of her life’s discarded rubbish. He lined the bags up, row upon row, a mountain of her excesses and all at his expense. She had treated him like a mug, just there to pay the bills and deal with her shit. Well now she was gone, and he was glad she wasn’t there anymore; glad she was out of his life; glad he would never have to listen to her whining or sarcastic digs.

  He ran downstairs and put the bedding into the washing machine, switching it up to the highest temperature setting. If it was ruined it didn’t matter. He’d just buy some more. He didn’t care if everything about her was destroyed. He just wanted to cleanse the house of every single molecule of the bitch. Filling another bowl with boiling water and bleach he grabbed the mop and started to scrub at the wooden floors, cleaning and exterminating her filth. It didn’t matter that it was gone midnight. He would spend all night if necessary. And all the next day. And if she’d chosen to take her favourite little boy, so be it. She reaped what she sowed and she would have to deal with it.

  He peered into the bedroom where his other child slept, unaware of the whole situation. His breathing was steady; the duvet pulled back allowing his shoulders and arms to move freely, unfettered by its smothering restraint. A leg stuck out from the side of the bed. A shaft of moonlight shone down on the boy’s face, making it appear almost angelic in the darkness of the night. His glance moved from his son’s face to a photo on the bedside cabinet next to him. She was in it and he couldn’t bear to see her mocking him.

  He tiptoed across the room and snatched the photo up, turning it round to stare at her features in the light of the moon. How he hated her.

  His son stirred, pulling his leg back under the duvet and turning on to his side away from him. He stared at the photo one last time before pushing it firmly under his arm.

  ‘That bitch ain’t never coming back,’ he whispered to his son. ‘I hope she rots in hell.’

  Chapter 2

  Charlie Stafford was late. She was always late. Things just happened in front of her. Today she’d helped the ticket collector catch a wayward youth who’d jumped the barriers to escape paying his fare. Last Wednesday it was the pedal cyclist knocked from his bike and on Thursday it had been the old lady crying because she’d lost her purse. Tomorrow it would be something else. However hard she tried to be on time, things just happened!

  It had all started on 6th July 2007 when, at the age of twenty, in front of the Commissioner no less, she’d turned up late for her own passing-out parade, having stumbled across two recruits squaring up to each other in one of the site tower blocks. It had been the last ever ceremony to be held in front of the statue of Sir Robert Peel, founder of the Metropolitan police, at Hendon Training school before it closed its doors to new trainees. She hadn’t lived it down.

  Nine years on and she was still always late. Nothing had changed!

  She was either labelled a ‘shit magnet’ by some of her lazier colleagues or a ‘thief-taker’ by conscientious officers, jealous of the uncanny way she came across crime and criminals. One thing that was accepted, however, was that you never had a quiet day if you were working with Charlie.

  She broke into a slow jog now, her favourite trainers squeaking slightly at the extra pressure. It was Monday and she hated Mondays; Mondays and Wednesdays, but today somehow felt different. She’d been on a course at the end of the previous week. Maybe it was having that extra day off that had made the atmosphere strangely impatient, and maybe, added to the weekend, it was being away for slightly longer? She didn’t know what it was but there was something in the air; a new challenge, maybe a new case to pit her wits against.

  Lambeth HQ came into sight. She glanced towards its imposing glass frontage, squinting slightly as the early morning sun reflected against the buildings opposite. It always looked impressive in the mornings, set back a couple of hundred yards from the River Thames on the south side of London; its upper floors looking across towards the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. It was home to the various squads and departments that serviced the Borough of Lambeth, with its twenty-seven square kilometres of policing challenges: ranging from the London Eye and South Bank in the north, through the clubs and eateries of Vauxhall and Clapham, to the shopping and housing areas of Brixton and Streatham in the south.

  She glanced up at the glass trying to identify her office on the fourth floor, before checking her watch. Her team would all be in by now.

  Vaulting the cycle railing outside HQ, she stared at her reflection in the glass of the revolving doors, realizing yet again that she’d forgotten to calm the tuft of unruly hair that always presented itself, like the horn of a rhino, at the front of her head. Even short hair managed to defeat her in the mornings. She checked herself critically. Plain, but with potential; or so her mother said. Medium height and athletic, but with a few excess pounds to shed. Skin: clear but rather pasty-looking; time to get out into the countryside for some exercise and adrenalin. As for her clothes; crumpled, with dirty knees and elbows from her tussle with the fare-dodger. All in all, she had to admit that today she did look scruffy, even by her own standards.

  Her spirits dipped slightly. Damn, she’d get another dressing-down from her boss, Hunter. Running her hands over her head in a futile attempt to calm the stubborn quiff, she doubted whether, even if she were the commander of Lambeth Borough, he would turn a blind eye to her appearance today.

  *

  ‘Ah DC Stafford, you’re late again and you look like shit. Glad you could make it though, fresh from your Super Recognizer’s course. Where have you been? We’ve all been waiting for you. Or did you fail to recognize it was 8.30 and not 8 a.m.?’

  DI Geoffrey Hunter didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Right, now we’re all here, at last. I’ll get on.’ He accentuated his words and Charlie felt herself redden at his sarcasm. A bollocking on a Monday morning in front of her colleagues was never the best start to a week.

  ‘Sorry guv,’ she tried.

  He ignored her. ‘We’ve had a few new reports referred to us over the weekend which I need to assign. One of which has potential.’

  Charlie pricked her ears up. There were rarely cases with potential in her department, unless Hunter meant potential for trouble. She worked in the Community Support Unit, a branch of the CID or Criminal Investigation Department, having only acknowledged her ambition to investigate major crime in the last year.

  Up until then she had put off becoming a detective, preferring to be out on the streets dealing with crime as it happened, and as it often happened right in front of her she had excelled.

  Her first big collar after leaving Hendon to join Charing Cross police station had been a rapist she’d recognized from an e-fit. On little more than a hunch and a similarity to the suspect, she’d found him in possession of duct tape, a knife and keys to a Vauxhall. Having scanned the streets, she’d located his car, and discovered photos and details of a female in a nearby street. Her suspicions aroused, she’d headed straight to the woman’s address and kicked the door down only to find her gagged and taped up in her bed, the last victim of a series of horrific attacks perpetrated by the same suspect. The mental anguish of the victim in the case affected Charlie greatly. It was personal. She went out of her way to stay with the woman through every step of the investigation, determined to obtain justice for her. She knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of injustice. It was exactly for this reason she’d joined the police.

  She stayed at Charing Cross initially loving the adrenalin of the streets before transferring to Lambeth borough, where she continued to revel in her work. She was rewarded with an advanced pursuit driving course and the newly developed Super Recognizer’s course and was head-hunted by some of the specialized CID squads in the Met investigating serious crime and criminals.

  Afte
r being shot at in a backstreet of Brixton, she’d decided that CID was the place to really make a difference so returned to Hendon Training College; only to find it a shell of its previous self, with many of the buildings and tower blocks empty and derelict.

  She’d emerged as a detective constable and found herself immediately posted to the CSU, first stop for all budding CID officers. Nearly six months later she was still there.

  The unit had the remit to deal with any allegations involving domestic violence, race, faith, sexual orientation or disability, but as she was just discovering, it was the most risky and politically explosive unit in CID. If you got it wrong here, your career would be ended before it had begun.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ Charlie asked.

  She hoped it would give her the chance to get out and about and, if she did get out, that Hunter would come with her. He might be her boss but he too liked to be out on the streets and had the reputation for attracting action.

  ‘Like I said,’ he looked to be studiously avoiding making eye contact with her. He was obviously keen to make her sweat. ‘It has potential. A woman and her son, missing since Friday, reported by her husband today. Nothing too sinister at the moment, although the husband sounds like a nasty bastard. It’s being dealt with by the missing persons unit, but they’ve asked us to take a look, as the couple have a history of domestic violence. The chances are the wife’s probably just come to her senses and moved out, but it’s raised concerns because they have another son who has been left behind.’

  He paused and this time looked directly at her.

  ‘Charlie, I want you to look into what we know about them. How many previous DV reports? When was the first report and the last, and if any include an assault or threat to assault. If there are actual assaults, see if they have escalated in severity. It’s strange for a mother to take one son but leave the other, particularly if there is a violent history.’