New true crime book - your free chapter of 'Decoy'
To mark the release of my new true crime book 'Decoy,' here is your free chapter.
BRISTOL, 1979
Is he out here tonight?
The neon lights of clubland flashed red on the Undercover Officer’s face as she passed through the city, asking the same question she had been putting to herself for months. She leaned forward and turned up the car’s heater, turned down the disco music on the radio and sank back into the passenger seat, resuming her gaze through the side window.
It would be 2 a.m. soon: club closing time. A few figures were already tumbling out of bar-room doors and onto the pavements.
A thin man, maybe a student, stood on the street in a tight T-shirt and enormous flares, squinting drunkenly at the officer’s car. He put out his hand in a vain attempt to flag it down. A friend pushed him playfully.
‘Better luck next time, matey,’ said Kelvin, from behind the wheel. The Undercover Officer glanced across at him.
How many decoy operatives had Kelvin Hattersley deployed over the last month or so?
Is he out here tonight? the Undercover Officer repeated to herself before closing her eyes.
One more run, then bed.
One more freezing run.
Kelvin hit a stretch of road where there were neither pedestrian crossings nor traffic lights, but he didn’t speed up. Instead, he kept a steady 25 miles an hour, watching as he went, glancing from side to side.
The Undercover Officer turned to her left and saw the darkened side streets beyond the street lamps: this was where all of the attacks had happened. Flicking past her, the turnings into avenues which stretched off into black.
Did the man wait down these roads? Like a spider in its web, did he set a trap and wait for a woman to fall in? Or, like a predator, did he find a victim on the main street then stalk her until he found a dark corner, where he knew he could carry out his attack unseen?
The Undercover Officer knew one thing: the main road was a safe space. Relatively. The crowds, the fights, kicking-out time, drunken men… She could handle all of these.
But the side streets were different.
The Undercover Officer pulled down the sun visor and tried to look in the mirror on the underside.
Her eyes were dark, her skin pale.
She thought of her friends who had done this exact same job night after freezing night. Not for the first time did she ask herself: What am I doing?
She remembered the latest headlines in the newspapers:
‘A City in Fear’; ‘The Police Should Do More’; ‘How Many More Women Will Be Attacked Before He Kills?’
The Undercover Officer flipped the sun visor up. She opened her coat and reached for the brick-shaped radio hanging from a strap around her neck and twisted the dial.
As her earpiece crackled, she spasmed, found the dial again and turned it down.
‘You okay?’ Kelvin was looking at her kindly as he pulled up to the kerbside.
The Undercover Officer nodded.
She recalled her first walk: the flash of fear and excitement, a sense of the unknown as she left the car. But that pang of nervy adventure had dulled over the weeks. This was her job tonight – the same job she had done countless times.
She opened the car door and walked into what felt like a wall of cold air.
‘Subject’s left the car…’ she heard Kelvin say as she closed the door. The words echoed into her earpiece.
The Undercover Officer saw a set of traffic lights ahead and began walking towards them, then turned left onto the main road. A group of men walked past, shouting at each other. Guttural laughs. She slipped by them and started up the gentle incline before the steep stretch of Whiteladies Road.
This was the main strip: a broad road with wide pavements heading out of the city. Bars, clubs, shops and restaurants either side.
‘Alpha One. Subject’s past me,’ the Undercover Officer heard in her earpiece. Glancing right, she thought she saw a pair of eyes near a pathway behind a bush.
Which observation guy had that been? she wondered. Andy? John? Chris?
The cold was starting to seep through her duffle coat, through her heavy jumper and was biting into her skin.
How many runs have we done over the months now? she asked herself as she started up the steeper hill.
Then, again: Is he out here tonight?
‘Alpha Two, subject’s in view,’ crackled the voice through her earpiece. She had been picked up by the next observation officer on the route.
The Undercover Officer breathed out.
Across the road a young woman walked purposefully down the hill. She looked as if she was on her way to work.
Was she on a cleaning shift, or off to the hospital? Maybe a nurse, or even a doctor?
The same thoughts flashed into the Undercover Officer’s mind whenever she saw someone who held any vague likeness to herself: Do you know what you’re doing out at night? Is it really worth putting your safety at risk for the price of a cab? I have an earpiece, a microphone, a backup team and self-defence training – you have nothing.
It was then that her thoughts were interrupted by a message in her earpiece. She couldn’t quite make it out, so she stayed silent so as not to talk over the repeat. But the second time she heard it perfectly.
This was Kelvin Hattersley’s voice.
‘There’s a man on your tail. He’s in a car, a Ford Capri. Repeat, a yellow Ford Capri. He’s driving behind you. Looks just like the photo-fit. Repeat, there’s a man on your tail.’
Okay, she thought.
The Undercover Officer’s breath pulsated out of her in clouds under the orange street lamps. Cars cruised down the hill towards her, but she could neither focus on them nor on a crowd of women just yards away by the kerb.
The Undercover Officer listened for a car behind her. Was she imagining a distant chug of an engine?
Was that him?
There had been no sound in her earpiece for a few minutes. Was it working?
Speak to me. Speak to me.
Then there was a crackle. And another voice. Not Kelvin’s deep tones. This was higher-pitched.
‘This is Control. We’ve run a check on the number plate. You’re not going to believe this. He’s a killer. A killer. Out on life licence. He also raped his victim.’
It took a few moments for the words to land in the Undercover Officer’s mind.
A killer?
‘You can pull out at any time. If you carry on, he has to touch you. Repeat. He has to touch you. But you don’t have to go through with this.’
The Undercover Officer breathed out again and closed her eyes. Ahead of her was the well-lit road. He would never assault her there. To catch this man, she must lead him into those darkened side streets. There, and only there, might he attack.
What he had done to these women was brutal, life-changing… She knew this, she had read the reports. Should she put her own safety first, knowing he would almost certainly target another woman tonight? An innocent, unsuspecting woman, perhaps like the one she had just seen? Or should she put herself in the line of fire of one of the country’s most wanted men? What if the backup teams didn’t arrive in time? What if he had a knife? What if he took her hostage?
He had threatened to kill every single one of his victims.
Now she had discovered he had murdered someone before.
‘Do you copy?’ crackled the voice in her earpiece. ‘You have a killer on your track.’
Ahead of her was the well-lit road: safety. To her left were the darkened side streets: danger.
The Undercover Officer took one last breath and made up her mind.
This follows my first book - To Hunt A Killer - co-written with murder detective Julie Mackay. We won ‘Best New Author’ award at the True Crime Awards and were shortlisted for a CWA Gold Dagger.