The Disappeared: A gripping crime mystery full of twists and turns!
YOU’LL NEVER FIND ME…A twisty, compelling, characterful crime thriller from a major new talent.NOT TO BE MISSED!A distraught mother…When Susan Wilkins walks into No Stone Unturned, Leeds’s newest private detective agency, owners Lee and Jo are thrilled. Their first client is the kind of person they always hoped to help—a kind woman desperately worried about her son, Jack.A missing son…The case seems simple—kid starts college, takes up with the wrong crowd, forgets to ring his mother. But very quickly, Lee and Jo suspect they’re not being told the whole truth.A case which could prove deadly…Their office is ransacked, everyone who knows Jack refuses to talk to them and they feel like they’re being followed…it’s clear Lee and Jo have stumbled into something bigger, and far more dangerous, than they ever expected. Will they find Jack, or will their first case silence them both for good?
Читать The Disappeared: A gripping crime mystery full of twists and turns! онлайн беплатно
KillerReads
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Copyright © Ali Harper 2018
Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers 2018
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com
Ali Harper 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.
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008292652
Version: 2018-04-12
For Harvey and Maggie
Table of Contents
Had I known our first client would be dead less than twenty-six hours after signing the contract, I might not have been so thrilled when she pushed open our office door.
I once read that hindsight is always twenty-twenty, but I disagree. Hindsight distorts the picture, makes us believe we could have done something different, something better. Hindsight opens the door to ‘if only’ and the ‘if only’ is what kills you.
It had been five weeks, four days and six hours since we’d opened for business and in all that time no one had so much as glanced through the window. Despite adverts in every local listings magazine, the only phone calls we’d fielded were cold ones – did we want double-glazing, roof repairs, a conservatory? Jo had been getting increasingly aggressive with each caller. The strain was getting to both of us.
I was alone in the office that Friday afternoon. Jo had nipped out in the company’s battered Vauxhall Combo, ostensibly to buy printer ink – but really, I knew she’d be checking out the latest surveillance equipment at The Spy Shop, down on Kirkstall Road. Jo’s my best mate, business partner, and a gadget freak: not always in that order.
I’d been at my desk when I’d noticed the woman pacing the pavement opposite. I’d watched her through the gaps in our vertical strip blinds. She’d smoked two cigarettes, crushing out the stubs with the heel of her boot. Truth is, I’d been willing her to cross the street and come on in.
So when she did step through the door, my pulse quickened and my mouth went dry. I slid my packet of Golden Virginia into the top drawer.
She was nervous, obviously so. She had blonde hair, cut kind of choppy round her face and she kept touching it, scratching at the back of her neck.
‘Hi,’ I said. I almost fell over the desk in order to shake her hand. She allowed our palms to touch for less than a second, but long enough for me to register the coolness of her skin. ‘Welcome to No Stone Unturned.’
She glanced around. Our office used to be a corner shop, situated at the end of a red-brick terrace, so it has windows on two sides. The rent is cheap, and the interior walls are panelled in a wooden laminate that wobbles whenever we shut a door or slam a drawer too hard.
I watched her drink in the details – the cheap brown carpet tiles, the battered filing cabinet we’d bought from Royal Park Furniture Store – purveyor of cheap crap to low-class landlords. I noticed the pot plant Jo had supplied was looking thirsty.
‘Are you missing someone?’ I asked.
‘Sorry.’ Her voice was soft, well-spoken – the kind of voice that could have worked for The Samaritans.
‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘It must be diff—’
‘Could I speak to an investigator?’
I straightened my spine, remembered to ground myself through the soles of my feet. ‘You are. I’m the …’ I wanted to say proprietor but settled for ‘lead investigator.’ Jo would have punched me.
