The Sinner Read online

  Praise for

  ‘Waites brings all his storytelling talent and experience to this chilling tale. Superb’

  LEE CHILD

  ‘Waites is one of the very best crime writers we have, simple as that. I’d been looking forward to this for a long time and, boy, it was worth waiting for. I don’t know if I devoured IT or IT devoured ME . . .’

  MARK BILLINGHAM

  ‘Martyn has written another raw, deftly-plotted thriller with a dark heart and a real emotional punch’

  SIMON KERNICK

  ‘Authentically spooky, thrillingly atmospheric and unnervingly relevant. The Wicker Man for the Brexit era’

  CHRIS BROOKMYRE

  ‘Reading Martyn Waites is a guaranteed thrill-ride. His characters sing off the page, his plots keep you guessing until the end, and I always read his books in a day’

  SARAH PINBOROUGH

  ‘A joyous new series with an adorable hero. Waites has come thundering back with all his talent intact’

  ALEX MARWOOD

  ‘A chilling slice of country noir. Great stuff’

  MICK HERRON

  ‘One of those books you start reading and feel it envelop you like a second skin, meaning you can’t put it down. Deliciously creepy. I loved it. Every word. Superbly written, creepy as hell, and chilling to the bone. I can’t recommend it highly enough!’

  LUCA VESTE

  ‘A superbly atmospheric book full of menace and secrets’

  TOM WOOD

  ‘Martyn Waites at his dark and chilling best’

  EVA DOLAN

  ‘Martyn Waites is already crime fiction royalty. Tom Killgannon is one of the best new characters in modern fiction’

  STEVE CAVANAGH

  ‘An excellently woven crime novel, with a captivating setting and a brilliant lead character, from master storyteller Martyn Waites’

  RAGNAR JONASSON

  ‘A compulsive and creepy crime novel, brilliantly atmospheric and original. It’s one of those books you keep saying to yourself – just one more chapter – and then realise you’ve been up all night. One of the best books I’ve read this year’

  STAV SHEREZ

  ‘Deeply unsettling and hauntingly realistic’

  SUSI HOLLIDAY

  ‘This is a great read – dark and disturbing, a novel that’s gripping from the first page to its incredibly satisfying climax’

  KEVIN WIGNALL, AUTHOR OF A DEATH IN SWEDEN

  ‘Crime noir at its finest. Gritty, claustrophobically tense and deeply emotive – unputdownable!’

  STEPH BROADRIBB, AUTHOR OF DEEP BLUE TROUBLE

  ‘Dark and twisting’

  A. K. BENEDICT, AUTHOR OF THE EVIDENCE OF GHOSTS

  ‘A twisting, atmospheric, scary tale that introduces a terrific new character in troubled Tom Killgannon’

  ANYA LIPSKA, AUTHOR OF THE KISZKA & KERSHAW SERIES

  Contents

  Part One: Ghosted

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part Two: Isolated

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part Three: Hanged

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Part Four: Hunted

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Part Five: Renewed

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Martyn Waites

  Prisons and Me

  Letter from Author

  Copyright

  To Chrissie and Beth, always

  Part One

  GHOSTED

  Manchester, May 2014

  A night far enough in the past for stories to be told. But recent enough for those stories to matter.

  An old industrial estate and lorry park in the badlands of Stretford. The buildings mostly empty and vandalised, the tarmac potholed, refilled with debris, broken glass and excrement, canine for the most part. The remaining lights stretched so far apart they looked stranded. The kind of place no one went to voluntarily. It was perfect.

  Dean Foley sat in the passenger seat of the BMW X5. Its gleaming, black carapace stood out against its surroundings, as inconspicuous as an intellectual at a UKIP meeting.

  Foley turned to the man in the driver’s seat. ‘What’s the time now?’

  The driver checked his watch, tried not to look irritated. ‘Just gone ten to ten. They’ll be here. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Foley. ‘I know they will, I know they will.’

  The tension in the car was palpable.

  Foley looked like a bouncer on Love Island. Short and stocky, he wore expensive clothes that were all label and no style, his hair well-coiffed, teeth the colour of Egyptian cotton, skin the colour of mahogany. His muscle showed he could handle himself and he had a lightness of step that surprised many. He also had a charismatic, salesman’s smile that made you feel like you were an instant friend for life. But that smile could turn on a breath, become so fierce and snarling it would be the last thing you’d want to see. And for quite a few it had been.

  Foley sighed. Tried not to pretend he was nervous. ‘You know,’ he said, resisting the urge to check his own watch again, ‘I don’t know why we bother with all this cloak and dagger shit. Meetings in the dark in shitholes like this. We should just do it in broad daylight. Get it over with. No one’s bothered anymore.’

  ‘You think?’ said the driver.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Foley, warming to his theme. ‘I mean, protection I’ve got, the amount of people on my payroll, I could walk into a pub on Deansgate – if they hadn’t all been turned into fucking wine bars or craft beer places or some shit – pull out a gun and kill someone. Right then and there. Bang. In front of thirty witnesses. And you know what? I’d get away with it. That’s how untouchable I am. That’s why all this is just bollocks.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the driver, ‘that’s what the Krays said. Look what happened to them. And that was before CCTV.’

  Foley turned to him, his smile a vicious slash in the streetlight. He snorted. ‘You’re a bundle of laughs tonight, aren’t you?’

  The driver star
ed straight ahead. ‘Why would you want to murder someone in a pub on Deansgate?’

  ‘I wouldn’t unless they were asking for it, would I?’ said Foley, ‘Then I’d have to. Because that’s what it is. You cross me, that’s what you get.’

  ‘If they’ve crossed you they wouldn’t hang around drinking on Deansgate.’

  ‘Then I’d track them down, wouldn’t I? Get revenge. They wouldn’t get far.’

  ‘You know what they say about revenge,’ said the driver, ‘you go looking for it you’d better dig two graves.’

  Foley stared at him. Then threw back his head and laughed. ‘Brilliant. Just brilliant. Mick, mate, if I go looking for revenge, I’ll need a damned sight more than two.’

  Mick lapsed back into silence. Foley fidgeted, flicked looks like lit matches all round the lorry park. His gaze came to rest on Mick once more.

  ‘Why are you so miserable tonight, anyway?’ asked Foley. ‘It’s like watching Man U when Moyes was in charge.’

  Mick sighed. More from professional exasperation than boredom. ‘Just want everything to go right. That’s all.’

  ‘Everything’s cool,’ said Foley, knee bouncing up and down. ‘It’ll go down fine. Why wouldn’t it?’

  Silence once more. Both resisted the urge to check the time.

  ‘Hey,’ said Foley, eventually, ‘Just think if my old man could see me now . . .’ He shook his head at the thought.

  ‘Sitting in some shitty lorry park in Stretford? He’d love that.’

  ‘No, you prick, if he could see what I’ve done, you know, built. Achieved. One of the most successful businessmen in the North West. If not the country. Respected. And I’ve done it all myself, haven’t I?’

  Mick nodded. ‘You have, Dean.’

  ‘Yeah. I have. If he could see what I’ve achieved . . .’

  ‘He’d still be a miserable bastard.’

  Foley stared at Mick, the smile falling sharply away. Eyes as hard as stone. No one talks ill of Foley’s father, everyone knew that. Foley might have hated him but that didn’t give anyone else the right to join in. He was still Foley’s father.

  Mick didn’t know which way the situation would go. He thought he was close enough to Foley, but the man was so unpredictable that he could have made a misstep. He tried to smile his way out of it.

  ‘Well he would be,’ said Mick. ‘You know he would.’

  Foley kept staring.

  Mick tried to shrug. ‘Just you and me here, Dean.’

  Gradually the harshness left Foley’s eyes and the smile reappeared. He started to laugh, building up to a roar, the kind of coarse, loud laughter you only hear in films when the bad guy tries to convince everyone he’s a decent human being with emotions like everyone else. Mick smiled along.

  ‘Oh,’ said Foley eventually, mirth subsiding, ‘good one, Mick. Good one.’

  Mick looked to the front, knowing he had dodged a bullet. Through the windscreen he saw activity.

  ‘They’re here, boss.’

  An articulated lorry with a shipping container payload was turning into the park, headlights temporarily blinding them, playing along the buildings, making the shadows give up their secrets. Foley’s team suddenly visible.

  Mick saw the cars too. Four by fours, like the one they were in. Predatory darkling beetles waiting to pounce. Dotted between buildings, waiting. Filled with Foley’s men. Mick looked through the windscreens, knew them all by name. Then, heart jumping, saw one person in a passenger seat who shouldn’t have been there.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ he said, pointing at the vehicle that had slipped back into darkness once the headlights moved on.

  ‘Who?’ said Foley.

  ‘That girl, in the front seat, over there. What’s she doing here?’

  ‘Oh, Hayley. Yeah, she’s a good girl. Been proving very useful to the team. Very useful.’ Another kind of smile. The kind that turned Mick’s stomach.

  ‘She shouldn’t be here. She’s—’

  ‘Hey, what’s your problem?’ said Foley. ‘We make the trade, we go our separate ways, we head off somewhere and celebrate. Yeah, maybe Foxy shouldn’t have brought her but she’s a good kid, it’s cool. No problem.’ Another smile. ‘She’ll be around for the party afterwards. Maybe Foxy’ll let you have a go, if you want.’

  Mick felt his anger ramping up. ‘She shouldn’t be here. What if something goes wrong? What if—’

  Foley stared at Mick, eyes crinkling. ‘What you trying to say?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Just, she shouldn’t be here. That’s all.’

  Foley shook his head. ‘Right.’ He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.

  The lorry pulled up, stopped dead with a hiss of air brakes. The sound dissipated to a tense silence.

  ‘Here we go, then,’ said Foley, opening the car door.

  Mick did likewise.

  Foley went round to the back of the car, opened the boot. Waited while the hydraulic door silently moved upwards. Then leaned in, brought out a huge duffel bag.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, handing it to Mick. ‘Carry that mate, bastard thing’s heavy.’

  ‘Thought they said it had to be you handing over the money in person?’

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I? Get moving. Haven’t got all bloody night.’

  Another four by four pulled into the car park, kept its lights on. It parked next to the lorry. The doors opened. The backlit silhouettes of two men emerged.

  ‘Here’s the Romanians, right on time.’ Foley laughed, moving forwards. ‘Should get a quote for my new bathroom.’

  Mick didn’t respond. They walked towards the two men. Stopped halfway between the two vehicles. The other men continued towards them. Stopped also.

  Mick handed the duffel bag to Foley. He stared back at Mick.

  ‘Just put it down, what the fuck’s the matter with you?’

  ‘You take it,’ said one of the Romanians. ‘We want you to give it to us. So we know who we are dealing with.’

  Foley’s eyes glittered in the dark. Clearly unhappy about being told what to do. But he picked the bag up, put it in front of his feet. ‘There. Now where’s my stuff?’

  ‘In lorry. We will get it. When we have checked money.’

  He bent down, opened the bag. A smile returned to Foley’s face. ‘Doing it old school, yeah? Notes and that. Unmarked. Thought you’d be all electronic transfer these days. You lot and your cybercrime.’

  ‘We like old school,’ said the other Romanian. ‘Face to face. Know who you’re dealing with. Less to go wrong.’

  The first Romanian stood up, satisfied that the money was all there. He nodded towards the driver of the lorry who went round the back, opened the double doors. They waited in silence while the driver came to join them, a clingfilmed bundle in his arms.

  ‘The good stuff,’ said Foley. ‘Let’s have a look.’ He took the bundle from the driver, took out a knife, dug it in. ‘It’s not like the films,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to put this up my nose. If it’s as pure as you say it is I’ll be off my tits for days. But I’m sure you won’t cross me. If you do, I’ll know where to find you.’

  ‘We not cross you. We want to deal with you. Deal?’

  Foley put the package on the ground. ‘Deal.’ He stretched out his hand. The Romanian took it. They shook.

  ‘We all happy?’ asked Foley.

  ‘One more thing,’ said Mick.

  Foley turned to him, irritation on his face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Speaking of crossing . . .’ He reached behind his back, brought out a pair of plasticuffs, slipped them onto Foley’s wrists, pulled them tight. Foley was too surprised to react.

  ‘Dean Foley, I am arresting you on the charge of obtaining class A drugs with intent to sell. You do not have—’

  Foley found his voice. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Mick? What the fuck are you doing? What’s . . . what’s happening? Mick, what the . . .’ He turned to the Romani
ans. ‘Fucking do something . . .’

  ‘We’re with him,’ said the first Romanian, voice now more Manchester than Bucharest. He drew his automatic from his side holster, pointed it at Foley.

  Foley looked around, tried to see his men in their cars but he had been cuffed out of their eyeline.

  The second Romanian spoke into a mic hidden in his jacket lapel. ‘Target apprehended. Letting you out now.’ He trotted round to the back of the truck, began opening the double doors.

  Foley struggled in Mick’s grip, managed to turn and shout at the cars.

  ‘It’s a fucking set-up! They’re law!’

  Foley’s men were on hair triggers. In response to his call they jumped out of their cars, pulling their guns from within their jackets. Mick dragged Foley to the ground as his men started running towards them, firing as they came.

  ‘Where’s that backup?’ Mick yelled to the back of the truck. He saw the second ‘Romanian’, an undercover firearms officer, swing the first of the double doors open, then spin and fall, face creased up in pain, as a bullet ripped through his side.

  ‘Shit,’ shouted Mick. He looked at the first Romanian. ‘Get him out of the line of fire, get those doors open. Get the men out, move . . .’ Mick’s training kicked in. He took his gun out, grabbed Foley, dragged him back to the BMW. Keeping covering fire going all the while. Turning on men who until seconds ago had been his closest friends. Or thought they were. Not thinking, just acting, reacting.

  The fake Romanian ran round to the back of the truck, pulled at the door. Armed body-armour-clad police began disgorging. They assessed the situation quickly, found spots to shelter behind, take aim.

  Then it was free fire.

  The fake Romanian managed to drag his wounded comrade behind the car, knelt and returned fire.

  The police outnumbered Foley’s men and outflanked them in professionalism, but Foley’s team were vicious, desperate. They had the chance to be the outlaws they’d always imagined themselves to be and they weren’t going to go down easily. At least not without taking out as many coppers as they could.

  Mick ran, dragging Foley across loose gravel and broken glass, keeping up the covering fire, head down, dodging overhead bullets. He didn’t have the benefit of body armour like the uniformed officers did. He just concentrated on the task at hand, didn’t allow himself to be drawn into the firefight. Foley screamed all the way, kept up a litany of threats as to what would befall Mick when he got free.