Primed to Kill: SINISTER MURDERS ARE RIFE (The Dead Speak Book 2) Read online

  Primed to Kill - Text copyright © Emmy Ellis 2019

  Cover Art by Emmy Ellis @ studioenp.com © 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  Primed to Kill is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  The author respectfully recognises the use of any and all trademarks.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

  Warning: The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s written permission.

  Chapter One

  Oliver took a deep breath. The call from a dead male to get him to the warehouse had been the first time he’d been contacted in months. He’d been nostalgic from lack of chatter from spirits, even though it took him to their death sites and he saw things most people couldn’t even imagine seeing. All his life—as far back as he could remember anyway—he’d heard them, been called a weirdo by his parents, leaving home when the family taunts had finally got to be too much. He’d made it work for him, though, assisting the police on cases, coppers finally accepting he wasn’t involved in the murders, that he really did hear ghosts.

  The air was hot. Like someone had a bonfire going, a huge, raging one, relentless heat coming off it, enough to sear your eyebrows.

  Oliver glanced around, past the police strolling the vicinity with their diligent, looking-for-clues paces. He eyed SOCO doing their thing in bootied feet and white suits, their hands covered in creamy latex. He didn’t see any reason for the heat, though. No fires mounted on the walls, their orange-bar stripes belting out warmth, the image reminding him of the electric fire in the living room of his childhood. No newfangled halogens, rectangles of bright yellowy-orange that not only served as heaters but damn good sources of light that hurt the eyes if you stared at them too long.

  Sweat dribbled down his back, spreading out over his armpits. He lifted his arms, put his hands on his hips casually, wondering, then not caring whether he had wet patches on his T-shirt. That kind of thing didn’t matter in situations like this. The small stuff paled into insignificance by death. The everyday worries of how good you looked and whether your hair needed washing didn’t figure for those called out to deal with the aftermath of some nutter’s handiwork.

  He stared at the corpse. Young bloke in his twenties. Christ, what a waste. He’d only just begun living really, possibly leaving home, branching out on his own. Did his parents even know where he was? How he’d ended up? Oliver imagined them going about their day-to-day business, thinking their son was at work maybe, when in reality…

  He didn’t envy whoever had to tell that their baby wasn’t coming back.

  This man would’ve been considered handsome in life, he reckoned. In death, though, he didn’t look so good, but then who did? Even those who passed in their sleep—nothing untoward going on here, folks, move along, please—tended to bloat, their orifices oozing fluid if their body hadn’t been discovered in time for Hank, the ME, to do his thing.

  Oliver had had the pleasure of meeting him a few months back. Pleasure seemed such an odd word given the circumstances, but Hank was a jolly man, probably having to be so because of the horrors he saw day in, day out. Hank would determine how this man had died, because although it seemed pretty obvious strangulation was the cause—the chain, look how tight that fucking chain is around his neck!—it might not be so cut and dried. He could have been killed first then strung up. This was a murder, not a suicide. What the hell went through a killer’s mind? Did they sit at home envisaging what they’d do to their victims? Write notes on the subject?

  If he’d been told years ago he’d be standing in front of some poor, dead bastards on a regular basis, he’d have shit himself.

  Funny how things turned out.

  The last case had been a bad one, a first for Oliver in that he’d trailed DI Langham around to every lead, had seen each dead body as they’d piled up, and really understood the hard work that went into catching wankers who had a mind to kill. An eye-opener. Yeah, the Sugar Strands case had been that all right, and now, here he was, in a warehouse with a corpse. And this corpse, well, it was something that could be seen all over the world at any given time, someone supposedly hanging themselves. Shit that appeared on the news and internet on a regular basis—so much so that, horribly, it failed to have a massive impact. Many people saw the same thing over and over too much and got used to it.

  From what he’d learnt from Langham, most people shot or stabbed their victims, a strangulation here or there, but with Sugar Strands, the victims had been mutilated, arms and legs cut off, faces peeled back, stomachs sliced open, their innards ripped out. It had been evil, no doubt about it, but this body here? It was the usual, the norm.

  Regardless, this was someone’s son, brother, nephew. Maybe even some kid’s dad. Shit. That thought didn’t sit well. He couldn’t imagine being that young and trying to understand why Daddy wasn’t going to walk through the front door. Why Mummy was crying and couldn’t stop. Why Daddy had even been hurt in the first place.

  But the victim might not have been a particularly nice man. Hung out with mean people. Got himself into this mess. Not that Oliver thought he’d deserved it if he had run in the wrong circles, but most people didn’t just end up this way.

  There wasn’t any blood, wasn’t much for him to chuck his guts up about, but it was the stillness that bothered him. The whole place—from its crummy, breeze-block walls to its rough concrete floor, to its metal-girder ceiling to its dirty, age-speckled windows—held a sense of desolation mixed with foreboding that told him this wasn’t just a one-off.

  There would be more like this.

  He sensed this as the first of many and didn’t know how he knew it either. The dead hadn’t told him, hadn’t spelt it out, and he acknowledged that with Sugar Strands he’d evolved somehow, grown an extra sense. That was all very well, but he’d never claimed to be psychic, to know the future and the past, and now it seemed he might well be capable of that. He’d explained to those at the station that he didn’t know anything until the dead told him, and they’d had to be content with that.

  With Sugar Strands he’d felt different, had been able to know when something wasn’t right long before they’d seen it wasn’t. Small things, like seeing flashes of what lay behind a closed door or getting the feeling that something wasn’t right in a certain house. But having a sixth, seventh, or fucking eighth sense wouldn’t aid him in helping solve crimes quicker. Knowing something was ‘off’ before he entered a room wouldn’t catch the killer. It just meant he felt funny, knew a little more than he had before. Had some kind of warning as to what they were walking into.

  Like now. Death number one.

  Around a ten-inch-wide stretch of rusty, peeling, red-painted metal went from floor to ceiling, seeming like it’d grown right out of the concrete and exited through the roof. He imagined the top of it poking into the sky, a modern-day chimney, then blinked to clear the image. He should be concentrating, waiting for the spirit to speak to him again, not allowing his mind to roam.

  “You got anything yet?” Langham asked quietly.

  His appearance at Oliver’s side had him jumping, and Oliver shook his head, turning to study Langham for signs of stress—or the alcohol they�
��d consumed before coming out. Earlier, they’d got rat-arsed on wine with dinner in a nice Italian restaurant, a celebration at the end of the Sugar Strands case.

  “The corpse’s spirit hasn’t spoken since we got here,” Oliver said. “But I… This isn’t…” He sighed. “This is the first of many.”

  “And you know this how?” Langham frowned, glancing at the body then back at Oliver. “If he hasn’t spoken…”

  “That feeling shit I got last time.”

  “Ah. Well, let’s hope not, eh?” Langham ran a hand through his hair. “Last thing we need is another serial.”

  “Yeah.”

  Langham walked off, to the warehouse doorway, staring out into the night as though the darkness would give him answers. Only time would tell, obviously, whether Oliver’s intuition was right, that they’d be called out to another sight like this one. It meant a second death to prove he could rely on these new feelings, so he hoped he was wrong.

  He gave the body his attention again. It had been attached to the floor-to-ceiling metal, a chain looped around and around the torso up to the armpits so he was held there, feet off the floor. It made the pelvis level with an average man’s face, and Oliver got a flash of information—sex crime—and he staggered backwards. Had this man been trussed up and used by his killer in that way? Oliver’s ears buzzed. He was right, but damned if he knew how he was certain. He waited for more information, closing his eyes and concentrating, freeing his mind and opening himself up for data to come in.

  “There’s loads of them.”

  The spirit’s voice startled him, and he snapped his eyes open, gaze meeting that of the bulbous-eyed victim.

  “Loads of them?” he whispered, stepping forward. “People?”

  “Yes. They…did things to me.”

  “What kind of things?” Adrenaline popped out of wherever the hell it resided inside him when it wasn’t needed and spread in a head-lightening streak to every part of Oliver. He swayed, equilibrium shot, and sucked in a deep breath.

  “They made me…do things.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s something they’d planned, something they’ve dreamt about for a long time. I’m the first.”

  “Shit, so I was right.” Oliver gained no satisfaction in that. “Who are they?” It was a long shot, but he had to try.

  “I don’t know.”

  Oliver stifled a sigh. He hadn’t expected any other answer.

  “They’re bald.”

  “Right. How many killers are there?”

  “About twenty? Maybe more. I didn’t…didn’t… It wasn’t the kind of situation where I could sit and count them.”

  “So what did they do?”

  “They hummed.”

  “Pardon?”

  “And swayed.”

  “Um…” Oliver wasn’t sure what to ask next. The image of twenty or more people swaying and humming in here while this poor fucker was chained up had his blood running cold. He shook his head to clear it. “Do you know why they did this?”

  “I was the one they wanted.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I’m gay.”

  “Aw, fuck.” Was this a gay-hater killing? Was that it?

  “It was just…fun for them. A ritual they wanted to play out. They… It’s getting difficult to stay here. I’m being pulled back…”

  “Wait!” Oliver shouted. Panic gripped him, chasing the adrenaline around until he felt sick. He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Just hang on for a while longer. Ritual? What do you mean? Like a sex ring? What?”

  Silence.

  “You had him?” Langham called.

  The warehouse was quiet, as if all officers had ceased work to stare at Oliver talking to the dead man. Most of them were used to it, but he’d seen a couple of new faces tonight, people who would wonder what the fuck was going on with the skinny bloke talking to himself.

  Oliver opened his eyes. Langham stood beside him.

  “Yes, I had him, and I was right. This is only the beginning.”

  Chapter Two

  TWO MONTHS LATER

  Adam kicked at the loose stones beneath his feet. Waiting around outside the mini-mart down the road from the flat he shared with his brother wasn’t his idea of a good time, especially when Dane was late finishing and the rain pissed down on Adam like no one’s business. Still, it got him out and about, didn’t it, and that was something.

  Times past, Adam wouldn’t have even stepped over the threshold at night. Wankers attacking him when he’d walked home in the dark had him afraid to go out. And he had been afraid, more than he’d liked to admit, because, fuck, it wasn’t cool to say you were frightened. Not around here anyway.

  No, it wouldn’t be a wise move. People would use it against him.

  This city was rough as arseholes. Just two months ago, a bloke had been found murdered in a warehouse, and before that, some nutbag had fed drugs to innocent people in order to make them go out and kill. The world was a messed-up place, no doubt about it, and Adam wanted out of the rat race more than anything.

  He shivered, a raindrop sneaking inside his collar and dripping down his neck. Damn weather ought to sod the hell off. Six days it had been raining, with no indication it was going to let up. They reckoned there’d be floods before long, insurance companies shitting bricks at the anticipated payouts. Good job Adam lived in a high-rise then, wasn’t it, and as for home insurance… It wasn’t like he could afford it.

  One day he’d get a job instead of relying on Dane to pay the rent. All right, Dane had moved in when Adam had lost his job because of…well, because of what had happened, but it couldn’t go on indefinitely. Adam felt guilty every time Dane dipped into his pocket, money for this or money for that, always something that needed paying for, but Dane insisted he didn’t mind.

  Adam glanced at the sky. Oddly, it wasn’t that dark, despite it being past midnight. The clouds hung low—looked as though they were sitting on the rooftops—all fat grey bellies and puffy arses. The moon shone from between two dirty great cotton balls, its pewter-coloured face somewhat angry compared to the usual smiling effort.

  Adam huffed out a short laugh, shaking his head. Like the moon was a real man. Jesus.

  The door to the mini-mart clacked open, giving Adam a bit of a start. Loud or sudden noises did that to him, and as he turned to see if Dane was on his way out, he wondered if he’d ever get over this shit. Kevin, Dane’s workmate, lifted one hand in greeting then yanked his hood over his head, scarpering down the road. Waste of time, that. He’d be soaked by the time he got home.

  Adam stared at the shop. The lights still blazed inside, yet it had closed over half an hour ago. He gave the door a push, expecting it to be locked, but it opened with the same clack it’d made when Kevin had left. The heater above the door blasted a welcome hot breeze, and Adam shivered again, rainwater falling from his hair and into his eyes.

  He gazed around, hoping to catch sight of Dane, but he was either in the office securing the takings or in the storeroom. Either way, it was a bit mental leaving the door unlocked like that, considering the dodgy element who lived around there.

  “Dane?”

  He waited a few beats for a response and, after not getting one, faced the door, lifting his arm to snap the bolts across. They slid into place easily, and he peered through the glass, moving his hand to grab the string that pulled the blinds down.

  It took a second or two for it to register that someone in a black balaclava stood on the other side, sawn-off held in gloved hands, fleshy lips slack in the sideways-oval mouth hole.

  Adam’s legs went. His bollocks drew up, and a scream brewed in his chest, but his lungs strangled the fuck out of it. He willed the scream to come out, or at least some form of noise so Dane knew what was going on, but nothing. He backed away, gaze fixed on that shotgun, as though if he didn’t look away from it the thing wouldn’t be used. The burly bastard holding it tucked it under his armpit and took aim.
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br />   Adam darted to the right, hiding beside the floor-to-ceiling shelf unit in front of the window that held breakfast cereals and chocolate digestive biscuits. He’d bought a packet of those the other day, had fancied them with a hot cup of tea and a good read of the newspaper.

  Funny how crap like that came to mind when you were scared shitless.

  He backed down the aisle, thinking that if he got to the other end he’d be able to run like hell to the rear of the shop, warn Dane, and call the police. Memories from before came, and he batted them away—if he let them run free he’d be as good as dead. That bloke out there could still see him from where he was, could still shoot through the glass and kill Adam’s sorry arse.

  Adam legged it, scooting around the corner, almost going arse over tit from his shoes being so wet. He ran to the back of the shop, nudging an end unit holding cheese Doritos and jars of salsa dip. They went flying, glass smashing behind him, and all Adam could think about was getting to Dane, getting to where he was safe.

  He plunged through the storeroom door, spotting his brother hunched over a large cardboard box, clipboard in hand, pencil clamped between his teeth. Dane looked up and removed the pencil, slipping it behind his ear. He stood, mouth open ready to speak, and must have registered the fear on Adam’s face. He snapped his mouth closed.

  “There’s a man. A fucking man!” Adam’s chest burned.

  “Aww, come on now.” Dane stepped forward, dropping the clipboard into the open box. “You can’t keep doing this every time you see a bloke in the dark. I told you before, it was a random attack, it—”

  “There’s a man! Shotgun. Balaclava.” Adam jabbed his thumb in the air over his shoulder, glancing that way to make sure the bloke wasn’t behind him.

  “Fuck.” Dane’s face paled, and he strode past Adam, yanking the door open and going down the corridor to the office.

  Adam followed, trailing him right up the arse. Dane stared at two monitors on the desk, one showing the back entrance, the other showing the front, then turned to Adam.