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Darkhouse
Alex Barclay
EVERYTHING YOU NEVER EXPECTED. Escaping New York for the beautiful Irish Isle seemed the best way to escape the past for NYPD detective Joe Lucchesi and his family. But following the death of a girl in the local village, Joe soon finds out that the killer is closer to his past than he would care to remember.From a broken childhood comes an unbreakable and deadly bond.In New York, when a routine investigation comes to a violent and tragic end, Detective Joe Lucchesi takes leave from the NYPD and moves with his wife and son to a quiet village on the south-east coast of Ireland. But their lives are torn apart when a young girl goes missing and the village closes ranks.Desperate to protect his family, Joe sets out to find the truth and uncovers a trail that leads back across the Atlantic to a Texan backwater, where decades earlier, a chilling pact bound two teenage boys forever in a dark and twisted loyalty.
ALEX BARCLAY
Darkhouse
Copyright (#ud45d8102-cbca-5e52-9590-4e0c940d7568)
This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006
Copyright © Alex Barclay 2005
James Baldwin quote with the kind permission of
Gloria Smart for the Estate of James Baldwin
Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)
Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780008180874
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2010 ISBN: 9780007346875
Version 2016-05-17
Praise for Alex Barclay (#ud45d8102-cbca-5e52-9590-4e0c940d7568)
‘The rising star of the hard-boiled crime fiction world, combining wild characters, surprising plots and massive backdrops with a touch of dry humour’ Mirror
‘Tense, no-punches-pulled thriller that will have you on the edge of your deckchair’ Woman and Home
‘Explosive’ Company
‘Darkhouse is a terrific debut by an exciting new writer’ Independent on Sunday
‘Compelling’ Glamour
‘Excellent summer reading … Barclay has the confidence to move her story along slowly, and deftly explores the relationships between her characters’ Sunday Telegraph
‘The thriller of the summer’ Irish Independent
‘If you haven’t discovered Alex Barclay, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon’ Image Magazine
Dedication (#ud45d8102-cbca-5e52-9590-4e0c940d7568)
To Brian, my hero
And to my parents
‘The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.’
James Arthur Baldwin
Table of Contents
Cover (#u53131230-ae39-59ae-ad7f-80a7f09ae343)
Title Page (#u9d64dc15-a386-5699-ae71-17cee626101e)
Copyright (#u2e3ce42b-6cb9-5de2-ac22-1f68c9b1eb6d)
Praise for Alex Barclay (#ue74cd653-9d51-5ac3-9fa3-289e3b1b7d6a)
Dedication (#u3faa13b8-7af3-560e-a47d-42edf66f2294)
Epigraph (#u51860cf9-eb4c-58af-85a5-8eea48d0f544)
Prologue (#uc0a2638e-25d2-5a9d-8cd0-e73663d80b4e)
Chapter One (#uc9115a9f-c378-57c0-94cf-6d9064169660)
Chapter Two (#uccca5f7d-7251-53f5-aba4-241472937f98)
Chapter Three (#u9631fe6a-37b0-503f-be78-1cf21cdd06c5)
Chapter Four (#ua638f807-d7d7-58d8-a5eb-fa765a950abd)
Chapter Five (#u569983f1-b8ef-50f1-8ced-820850698877)
Chapter Six (#u46601a4f-a57e-50bc-b6e5-23959cefe457)
Chapter Seven (#u957c82dc-dd77-57c5-baf6-7e90dd4aca01)
Chapter Eight (#u39dc972b-89e9-5e78-8064-3a6d835db15b)
Chapter Nine (#uc2ef803a-b9b7-5790-87a5-debc45713c4b)
Chapter Ten (#uca83f44b-2bf8-5197-8032-74aca6822b7d)
Chapter Eleven (#u36230f6b-220d-5fe6-bfa0-d1e85382ed0b)
Chapter Twelve (#u281032b9-fe01-59dc-9f25-6e3b6a6f933e)
Chapter Thirteen (#u551a3179-85b8-569a-9ff5-d044c63b47c5)
Chapter Fourteen (#u4d512564-ce0f-584f-b89e-3032f41c55eb)
Chapter Fifteen (#ueabc39a6-9d12-595a-9ee3-b1ef897575aa)
Chapter Sixteen (#u69cfa6fc-bade-5b50-86a5-12fdf768cf76)
Chapter Seventeen (#u66496794-7472-5804-b9a9-2e4e0e7ecf2e)
Chapter Eighteen (#u3d65be24-4055-5cb8-bd74-c34aca2c7a27)
Chapter Nineteen (#u65f5c2cd-3112-5dd3-a897-fdb326159781)
Chapter Twenty (#u3371c5ed-22c7-5c9d-ac9f-2dda222dbec8)
Chapter Twenty-One (#u2782b8ab-58e7-5503-9494-b7be53333f25)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#u7a27f1f3-3b2f-53a2-ac58-0d0f7393f940)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#u947c6023-ca01-5e8f-a278-0cdfdd49a31e)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#u1726c911-48c9-51b1-bc82-35470b0af53a)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#u5c1aee06-4aa2-5363-a734-adf8c9addab8)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#u927b2b91-ec7d-51bc-aaef-39d4da9f80d1)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#u453d6676-8bf0-5a6b-84bf-15e66bcd3a49)
Chapter Twenty-Eight (#u675c4306-3f34-5fb3-80af-5fe6413d5d89)
Chapter Twenty-Nine (#ub94ff4ac-5c63-504d-83fb-f597afa7863a)
Chapter Thirty (#u555f3efc-d5d1-5e5b-921f-022c6f28d540)
Chapter Thirty-One (#u2d39d294-80d6-5fac-84f0-cd9596d1186f)
Epilogue (#ub6aafd43-2ef8-5434-b3f7-73097b1690d3)
Acknowledgments (#ue63f6671-ecc1-5cb8-9923-913a0cc3906b)
Keep Reading … (#ucf668179-5e10-57b6-9b20-bf236de850fa)
About the Author (#u5d361da3-80e8-58d9-b401-223b4e6cc044)
Also by Alex Barclay (#uc6bd381d-b938-593e-ab60-a9fbe5fd48d0)
About the Publisher (#u1f2ff68b-0431-56d4-bfe0-219021b05e99)
PROLOGUE (#ud45d8102-cbca-5e52-9590-4e0c940d7568)
New York City
Edgy hands slid across the narrow belt, securing it in place on the tiny eight-year-old waist. Donald Riggs pointed to the small box attached.
‘This is like a pager, honey, so the police can find you,’ came his lazy drawl.
‘Because you’re going home now. If your mommy is a good girl. Is your mommy a good girl, Hayley?’
Hayley’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t speak. She bit down on her lip and looked up at him, beaming innocence. She gave three short nods. He smiled and slowly stroked her dark hair.
The fourth day without her daughter was the final day Elise Gray would have to endure a pain she could barely express. She breathed deeply through anger and rage, guilty that it was caused more by her husband than the stranger who took away her child. Gordon Gray’s company had just gone public, making him a very wealthy man and an instant target for kidnap and ransom. The family was insured – but that was all about the money, and she didn’t care about the money. Her family was her life and Hayley, her shining light.
Now here she was, parked outside her own apartment at the wheel of her husband’s BMW, waiting for this creep to call her on the cell phone he left with the ransom note. Yet it was Gordon who dominated her thoughts. The insurance company had told the couple to vary their routine but, good God, what would Gordon know about varying his routine? This was a man who brewed coffee, made toast, then lined up an apple, a banana and a peach yoghurt – in that order – every morning for breakfast. Every morning. You stupid man, thought Elise. You stupid man and your stupid, stupid, rituals. No wonder someone was waiting outside the apartment for you. Of course you were going to show up, because you show up every day at the same time, bringing Hayley home from school. No detours, no stops for candy, just right on time, every time.
She banged her head on the steering wheel as the cell phone on the seat beside her lit up. As she fumbled to answer it, she realised it was playing Sesame Street. He’d actually set the tone to Sesame Street, the sick bastard.
‘Drive, bitch,’ each word slow and deliberate.
‘Where am I going?’ she asked.
‘To get your daughter back, if you’ve been behavin’ yourself.’ He hung up.
Elise started the engine, put her foot on the gas and swung gently into the traffic. Her heart was thumping. The wire chafed her back. By calling the police in that first hour, she had set in motion a whole new ending to this ordeal. She just wasn’t sure if it was the right ending.
Detective Joe Lucchesi sat in the driver’s seat, watching everything, his head barely moving. His dark hair was cut tight, with short slashes of grey at the sides. He questioned again whether Elise Gray was strong enough to wear a wire. He didn’t know where the kidnapper would lead her or how she would react if she had to get any closer to him than the other end of a phone. He had barely raised his hand to his face when Danny Markey – his close friend of twenty-five years and partner for five – started talking.
‘See, you got the kinda jaw a man can stroke. If I did that, I’d look like an idiot.’
Joe stared at him. Danny was missing a jawline. His small head blended without contour into his skinny neck. Everything about him was pale – his skin, his freckles, his blue eyes. He squinted at Joe.
‘What?’ he said.
Joe’s gaze shifted back to Elise Gray’s car. It started to move. Danny gripped the dashboard. Joe knew it was because he expected him to pull right out. Danny had a theory; one of his ‘black and whites’, as he called them. ‘There are people in life who check for toilet paper before taking a crap. And there’s the ones who shit straightaway and find themselves fucked.’ Joe was often singled out. ‘You’re a checker, Lucchesi. I’m a shitter,’ he would say. So they waited.
‘You know Old Nic is getting out next month,’ said Danny. Victor Nicotero was a lifer, a traffic cop one month shy of retiring. ‘You goin’ to the party?’
