Games with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller
When a young woman is kidnapped, Donal is brought in to deliver the ransom money. But the tightly-planned drop off goes wrong, Julie Draper is discovered dead, and Donal finds his job on the line – a scapegoat for the officers in charge.But when Donal is delivered a cryptic message in the night, he learns that Julie was killed long before the botched rescue mission. As he digs further into the murder in a bid to clear his own name, dark revelations make one thing certain: the police are chasing the wrong man, and the killer has far more blood on his hands than they could even imagine.A gripping, brutal and addictive thriller, perfect for fans of Ian Rankin and James Oswald.
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JAMES NALLY
Games with the Dead
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollins Publishers 2017
Copyright © James Nally 2017
Cover photograph © Shutterstock
Cover design © Alison Groom
James Nally asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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.
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.
Source ISBN: 9780008149574
Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008270971
Version 2017-11-09
For Bridget, James and Emma.
Table of Contents
We all know Julie Draper now. Her twenty-four-year-old, shyly smiling face is everywhere. Can it really be just nine days since she rushed out of her estate agent’s office in south London to show a client around a house, only to vanish into thin air? The hunt for Julie Draper goes on. Only two people know she’s already dead. The man who killed her.
And me.
It’s this cursed ‘gift’ of mine, you see. These Games with the Dead that I’m forced to play. Julie comes to me at night now, just like the others did before, haunting and tormenting me. And I know she won’t quit. Not until I find her killer.
Don’t judge me. Please. I’m not a dangler of wind chimes or a martyr to the Tarot. I’m a cop, for Christ’s sake, a veritable tank of scepticism. That’s why I’m so desperate to find a clinical explanation for these close encounters with the recently whacked.
Several shrinks on, I’m told its sleep paralysis, but with an inexplicable twist. Whereas sufferers typically hallucinate traditional ‘bogeymen’ figures, like demons, witches or aliens, I see people whose murders I’m investigating. More baffling still, these murder victims give me clues as to how they died.
There’s nothing in their esteemed medical journals covering that …
Which is why I’ve never bought into this Sleep Paralysis quackery. Neither has my jaded girlfriend Zoe: ‘More like Ambition Paralysis.’ Or my hard-bitten hack brother: ‘It’s the DTs.’ I didn’t expect Mam to clear it all up for me like she did, on her deathbed. Presenting me the answer, wrapped in a family curse.
A curse I’m too scared to open.
Turns out mine is a ‘gift’ that just keeps taking. And taking. I’m twenty-five years old; trying to come to terms with an unthinkable new reality.
It’s 50/50 I won’t make it to thirty.
New Scotland Yard, London
A few days earlier. Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 19.00
‘It’s not too late to pull out you know, Donal.’ Commander Neil Crossley, Head of the Kidnap Unit, stares through my eyes into a future he barely dares to contemplate: ‘If he’s going to kill Julie Draper, there’s no reason why he won’t kill you. And we know he’s killed before.’
But I know there can be no turning back now. I’ve got something to prove. To ‘Croissant’ Crossley. To my brother Fintan. To Zoe, my perennially disappointed partner. The kidnapper might be getting his ransom money, but the payback will be all mine.
Julie Draper’s abductor has named his price. Crown Estates – her employer – must cough up £175,000 cash for her ‘safe return’. He nominated Julie’s estate agent colleague, Tom Reynolds, to deliver the cash. Any sign of police or media involvement during ‘the drop’, he’ll kill both.
Crown Estates gambled on drafting in the police. Commander Crossley is gambling on a Tom Reynolds-lookalike to deliver the cash.
