Stella Cameron - Whisper the Dead

Contents

The Alex Duggins series

FOLLY

OUT COMES THE EVIL

MELODY OF MURDER

LIES THAT BIND

WHISPER THE DEAD

Other Titles

SECOND TO NONE

NO STRANGER

ALL SMILES

SHADOWS

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

First published in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

Crme de la Crime, an imprint of

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY

This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Trade paperback edition first published

in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

Copyright 2017 by Stella Cameron.

The right of Stella Cameron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-099-7 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-584-8 (trade paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-941-1 (e-book)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

For Zipper, Boy, Maynard and Katie with love and gratitude

H e seized the neck of the open bottle and slid it to rest on his chest, cradled the cool glass, closed his eyes to the lullaby sound of the whisky inside the bottle gurgling to the top.

A few drops hit his face and he reached for them with his tongue. Got you, he whispered, sniggering, feeling the aromatic trickle on his lips. Waste not, want not. And there it was within the subtle floral burst of scent, the soft, wood-smoke bite of eighteen-years-old Glenmorangie.

Sweet, sweet oblivion come to me.

He upended the bottle, used both hands to steady it. When his eyes slid open he couldnt see much. The lamp was off wasnt it? Glass scraped between his teeth, chuddered, screeched. He choked, scrunched backward onto the pillows, heard the door to the sleeping compartment slam, closing him inside. The door. It closed, yeah. Being alone now was what he needed. Alone to fly.

Not enough room.

Couldnt cough.

Gagging couldnt breathe.

The bottle was too heavy for him to lift. It crammed down into his mouth, his throat. Too heavy to push away.

He struggled to grab the bottle and found someone elses hands there. That hand two hands slapped his away.

Cracking under his teeth. Let me go. Blood. It tastes sharp, sharp like the glass feels. Blood and glass.

There was nothing to hold.

Alex Duggins sniffed, and blinked at an acrid stench coming to her in the waning afternoon light. That was not smoke from the chimney of some isolated cottage or farm.

The wipers pushed snow across the windshield of her Range Rover, packed in into a blinding sheet. Alex leaned forward, flinched away from flying mud.

Hurtling at her, bouncing over ruts in the frozen ground, a small filth-covered utility vehicle didnt slow down. If the driver saw her Rover, he ignored it, speeded up even, shot forward as if he wanted a collision. She didnt see the driver, only got the impression of a camouflage paint job that might be used in a war.

Alex yanked the wheel, steered onto the verge and pumped her brakes. Her tires were the best. They dug in and shuddered to a stop. She bowed her head and pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart thundered.

Still shaken, she searched the heavy, grey skyline for a source of the filthy smell of burning. She parked and got out. Her boots crunched into frosty grass and bracken beside a wide track leading up a gentle incline. If there werent mature, leafless trees lining the way, anyone standing beside the rutted construction access might have concluded the developers had cut out a path for convenience. But they had used a lane that had been there a long time.

Perhaps she was getting a sign that she should have gone straight home from Stanton to Folly-on-Weir rather than deliberately taking a longer route.

Darkness began to gather but Alex didnt want to go back yet.

She carried on walking and watching. Ahead, wide utility gates stood open beneath a sign that stretched across the width of the track: Robert Hill. Just the name of the developer turning acres of perfect Cotswold land into a purportedly attractive village. Luxury living at affordable prices.

That wasnt the scuttlebutt throughout the surrounding villages and towns. One more cover-up to get damn good Cotswold farmland gobbled up by the elite incomers who can afford it, was the way Alex had heard it described, far too many times. On a whim, today she had decided to see the new village for herself.

The final stretch was steeper, climbing to the top of a rise, and Alex leaned into the incline. It was Sunday, and that must account for the lack of traffic or the sound of any activity. This development was the talk of the Black Dog, the pub and inn she owned in Folly. People in these parts didnt welcome, or even in many cases, accept change, even if that change involved a large swathe of land already owned by the developer. According to Doc James, the local GP in Folly who remembered the Hill family from years earlier when they lived in the area, Robert Hill was building on his own property and it had never been farmed.

The oily smell grew stronger. Alexs eyes stung and she squeezed them shut repeatedly. Were they burning old tires? She didnt know what you could legally burn outdoors. If she hadnt seen the Robert Hill sign at the junction of the B4632 toward Cheltenham and the B4077 which she would normally have taken on her way toward Folly from a small book auction in Stanton, she wouldnt have thought of stopping.

She wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And she wanted to delay getting back to Folly and to her mums out-of-character and increasingly grim mood not a welcome or pleasant feeling when it meant she didnt like the idea of going home.

Alex walked through the open gate. There was no sign ordering her not to come in. The nearest proposed buildings were little more than corner stakes with orange plastic ribbons that snapped in a brisk wind. Beyond this were houses in various stages of completion. The lots werent huge but each building was very individual in design and cleverly sited to allow for privacy.

The outlook over valley and forest, and what she could see of the houses, gave credence to comments that this was no affordable project. But whose business was that except the construction company, the Cotswold District Council, the surveyors and all the other official departments that got their hands into the building business? Leave it to them.