Rhodes Deadman's Pool

The BREATHTAKING new instalment in the Isles of Scilly Mysteries series...
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-916788-67-1
Verlag: Orenda Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 8, 300 Seiten

Reihe: The Isles of Scilly Mysteries

When Ben Kitto discovers the body of a young woman, buried near the ruins of an old isolation hospital on the island of St Helen's, he is convinced the killer is hiding in plain sight ... and determined to take more lives. The breathtaking, gripping new instalment in the Isles of Scilly Mysteries series... `A classy, edge-of-the-seat thriller which will keep you guessing throughout!´ B.A. PARIS `An absolute master of pace, plotting and character´ ELLY GRIFFITHS `Rhodes does a superb job of balancing a portrayal of a tiny community oppressed by secrets with an uplifting evocation of setting´ Sunday Express `Dark, intense, and expertly crafted´ RACHEL ABBOTT --- DI BEN KITTO RETURNS... A SACRED ISLAND Winter storms lash the Isles of Scilly, when DI Ben Kitto ferries the islands' priest to St Helen's. Father Michael intends to live as a pilgrim in the ruins of an ancient church on the uninhabited island, but an ugly secret is buried among the rocks. Digging frantically in the sand, Ben's dog, Shadow, unearths the emaciated remains of a young woman. A SHOCKING MURDER The discovery chills Ben to the core. The victim is Vietnamese, with no clear link to the community - and her killer has made sure that no one will find her easily. A KILLER ON THE LOOSE The storm intensifies as the investigation gathers pace. Soon Scilly is cut off by bad weather, with no help available from the mainland. Ben is certain the killer is hiding in plain sight. He knows they are waiting to kill again - and at unimaginable cost. ____ Praise for Kate Rhodes `Beautifully written and expertly plotted, this is a masterclass´ Guardian `Kate Rhodes directs her cast of suspects with consummate skill, keeping us guessing right to the heartbreaking end´ LOUISE CANDLISH `A vividly realised protagonist whose complex and harrowing history rivals the central crime storyline´ SOPHIE HANNAH `Expertly weaves a sense of place and character into a tense and intriguing story´ METRO `Rhodes does a superb job of balancing a portrayal of a tiny community oppressed by secrets with an uplifting evocation of setting´ Sunday Express `The whole book tingles with tension. I hope it does for the Scilly Isles what Ann Cleeves did for Shetland´ MEL MCGRATH `Evocative, immersive, twisty´ SARAH VAUGHAN `Gripping, clever and impossible to put down´ ERIN KELLY `A twenty-first century Agatha Christie´ JULIA CROUCH `Chillingly compelling and expertly assembled´ B. P. WALTER `Terrifying and tense, as unpredictable as it is compelling´ LESLEY KARA `Kate Rhodes is approaching pole position in the crime writing stakes with her beautifully plotted and elegantly written thrillers´ Financial Times `Terrifying´ Crime Monthly `Tense and properly chilling´ Fabulous Magazine `Clever, atmospheric and compelling´ Woman's Weekly

Kate Rhodes is an acclaimed crime novelist and an award-winning poet, selected by Val McDermid's New Blood panel at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for her debut, Crossbones Yard. She has been nominated twice for the prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library award, and is one of the founders of the Killer Women writing group. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, the writer and film-maker Dave Pescod, and visited the Scilly Isles every year as a child, which gave her the idea for the critically acclaimed Isles of Scilly Mysteries series.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rhodes, Kate

Leseproben

3

The storm chooses the worst time to attack us. Rain pelts my skin, as if someone is flinging chips of ice at my face. I should get Michael under shelter, yet it feels wrong to leave the grave unguarded. I’m struggling to believe that someone sailed here for a winter barbecue, drank some beer, then buried a corpse, ten metres away. But we can’t just stand here, getting drenched. Shadow stays close, and he’s smart enough not to disturb the crime scene. He behaves the same with my son, standing guard for hours, alert to any potential threat, while Noah learns to crawl. I lean down to feed Shadow some treats; he’s performed better than many search-and-rescue dogs, his sense of smell incredibly acute. My biggest concern is the priest, whose glassy stare has drifted out of focus as shock takes hold.

Michael doesn’t reply when I ask if he’s okay. He must have seen death many times, when he delivers last rites, but nothing prepares you for a life snuffed out, then discarded so casually. There’s something contradictory about the burial. The killer cared enough about the victim to wrap their body in a shroud then use plastic sheeting to protect it from the elements. The shifting sand may have left it nearer the surface than when the grave was originally dug. But why would anyone sail to a remote island in mid-winter, when they could have cast the body into the sea? It reminds me of the Albanian women, left to drift last summer, at the mercy of the tides. Traffickers don’t just cross the Channel by the shortest route anymore – the trade is getting more sophisticated. Large boats reach obscure parts of the British coastline, sometimes offloading dinghies full of terrified victims if the coastguard get too close, to avoid getting caught.

I need evidence bags and sterile material to keep the site free of contaminants, but I’ll have to improvise until help arrives. There’s a danger of corrupting the scene, so all I can do is take photos, then cover the victim’s face once more, weighing the plastic down with stones to prevent further damage.

‘Where can we shelter, Michael?’

His eyes are still glazed. ‘Only the Pest House.’

‘Let’s go, before the storm gets worse.’

The plague hospital won’t provide much cover, without a roof, but it’s our best chance of escaping the biting wind. It also removes Michael from the scene, before his shock deepens. We run together, back to the Pest House, where the building’s empty windows gaze out to sea. Round Island lies just five hundred metres away. Its shape looks oddly celebratory; it resembles a child’s birthday cake, with a lighthouse flickering at the centre like a candle, flaring every ten seconds, night and day. The sight warms me, even though rain is coursing down the back of my neck. It’s a reminder that the storm may be vicious, but most of humanity is well intentioned. There are safeguards in place to protect mariners from the sea’s worst moods.

The priest’s face is pale when we crouch behind the building’s ancient stone walls. I search my pockets for food, but all I have are treats for Shadow and a single energy bar. Nina buys boxloads of the things, to counteract my tendency to skip meals then come home bad-tempered.

‘Eat this, for the shock, Michael. Don’t go fainting on me.’

He remains motionless until I give him a gentle nudge, then obeys my instruction, like a child following a teacher’s order. I peer out to sea. No help will arrive until conditions improve. St Helen’s Pool looks calm enough, but breakers are cresting in the distance, ten feet high as the swell gathers strength. Great conditions for deep-water surfing, but not for sailing over miles of rough Atlantic. My suspicions are confirmed when my deputy, Sergeant Eddie Nickell, sends me a text. He’s arranged for the islands’ pathologist to be ferried over once the storm subsides.

I’m beginning to understand the sailors’ bleak existence when they lay in the Pest House, fighting for their lives. The outside world must have seemed far out of reach, even though the sick men survived on basic provisions dropped by islanders on the landing quay. Only the brave would make that journey, terrified of carrying a fatal disease back home, from air-borne infection.

When I check my phone again, the signal is weak. We’re at the outer limits of communication here, twenty-eight miles from the mainland, with the nearest mast a half-hour sail away. But I manage to contact the Coastguard Agency, asking them to check if their patrol boats have spotted any uncertified vessels landing on St Helen’s recently.

It takes me three attempts to reach DCI Madron, but I can’t leave him in the dark. He insists on being the first to hear important news. My boss must be outside when he picks up, the wind keening in the distance.

‘I’m off duty, Kitto. What is it?’

‘We’ve got a major incident, on St Helen’s. I thought you should know.’

‘Are you incapable of doing your job unsupervised?’

‘Listen to me, sir, please. It’s a body, buried in the sand.’

I hear him drag in a breath. ‘Stay there. Don’t touch anything without my permission.’

‘But I should—’

‘Follow my orders, for once in your life.’ Madron hangs up, or the connection fails, but the effect is the same. My hands are tied until he gets here. I can’t even comb the area for clues.

There’s only white noise now at the end of the line. The breeze steals my curses, as my frustration builds. Madron has watched me like a hawk for the past five years, questioning all my decisions and refusing to modernise our systems. The DCI expects updates twice a day on every case I lead. He’s obsessed by formal protocols, even in a crisis, when investigations should move like lightning.

Shadow is giving me more practical assistance than Madron ever does. He’s lying beside Michael, resting his muzzle on his thigh, providing warmth and a calming influence. The priest’s gaze is slowly coming back into focus while he strokes Shadow’s fur.

‘Help won’t arrive for a while, Michael,’ I say. ‘You can sail the launch straight home, once the wind drops.’

‘I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone. Sorry I lost it back there, but I couldn’t believe it. Who’d bury someone, right next to a shrine?’

‘There’s been smuggling on the off-islands lately. Maybe they came here to trade, and a deal went wrong. But it’s odd the victim’s so young.’ I could mention the Albanians we found, too terrified to betray their captors, but the priest is already shaken.

‘It doesn’t make sense.’ His voice is muted, but he seems calmer than before.

‘Stay out of the wind, for now. I’ll check if anyone’s sailed here recently.’

Shadow rises to follow me, but I motion for him to stay behind. The breeze batters my face again as I leave the shelter. I used to love gales as a kid, when storm-force winds blew so hard, it felt like they could lift me off my feet. There’s no chance of that now, at six and a half feet, built like a rugby full-back, with a battered face to match, yet the gusts still feel savage as I reach the brow of the island. The ground is covered in scrub grass, heather and bracken, even though only a thin coat of soil covers the stone. People once scrambled up here to perform sky burials, but the landscape feels tainted now. The local topography has changed completely since then. Maybe the killer believed the beaches would all be claimed by the sea one day, their crime undetected.

When I reach the eastern cliffs, there’s a sheer thirty-yard drop where the land plummets into the water. I peer down at breakers hitting the rock-strewn beach, and suddenly the air swarms with birds, screaming out warnings. Herring gulls wing high into the air, defending their nests; they flap against the breeze then hover above my head, releasing harsh cries. On a normal day I’d stop and admire them, despite the ugly sound. I can see kittiwakes too, on the ledges below, sheltering from the wind.

There’s no way a boat could land on this side of the island, and whoever visited hasn’t left me any evidence. All I can see is rough grass at my feet, tangled with native figwort and hogweed. I retreat from the cliff’s edge, and the gulls fall quiet. I’ve never felt more out of place. This island belongs to nature, not humanity. It’s hard to believe that people ever lived here, gathering rainwater when their well ran dry, reliant on crops raised from stony ground.

My old boss’s words return to me as I head west across the island. She ran London’s Hammersmith force with an iron fist, and her advice on murder investigations was simple: act fast, using specialists and all available officers, to get the job done. Evidence degrades in minutes, not hours. I’ve got no idea how long that body has lain under the sand, but the only resources...