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Ashes to Ashes: An unputdownable thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller
Paul Finch
The Sunday Times bestseller returns with his next unforgettable crime thriller. Fans of MJ Arlidge and Stuart MacBride won’t be able to put this down.John Sagan is a forgettable man. You could pass him in the street and not realise he’s there. But then, that’s why he’s so dangerous.A torturer for hire, Sagan has terrorised – and mutilated – countless victims. And now he’s on the move. DS Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg must chase the trail, even when it leads him to his hometown of Bradburn – a place he never thought he’d set foot in again.But Sagan isn’t the only problem. Bradburn is being terrorised by a lone killer who burns his victims to death. And with the victims chosen at random, no-one knows who will be next. Least of all Heck…
Copyright (#ucba65687-6d81-5aaa-bfae-7e3115ca0200)
Published by Avon an imprint of
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016
Copyright © Paul Finch 2017
Cover photographs © Henry Steadman
Cover design © Henry Steadman 2017
Paul Finch asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel 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.
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.
Source ISBN: 9780007551293
Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780007551309
Version 2017-10-26
Praise for Paul Finch (#ucba65687-6d81-5aaa-bfae-7e3115ca0200)
‘Wonderfully dark and peppered with grim humour. Finch is a born storyteller and writes with the authentic voice of the ex-copper he is.’
PETER JAMES
‘Edge-of-the-seat reading … formidable – a British Alex Cross.’
SUN
‘An ingenious and original plot. Compulsive reading.’
RACHEL ABBOTT
‘As good as I expected from Paul Finch. Relentlessly action-packed, breathless in its finale, Paul expertly weaves a trail through the North’s dark underbelly.’
NEIL WHITE
‘A deliciously twisted and fiendish set of murders and a great pairing of detectives.’
STAV SHEREZ
‘Avon’s big star … part edge-of-the-seat, part hide-behind-the-sofa!’
THE BOOKSELLER
‘An explosive thriller that will leave you completely hooked.’
WE LOVE THIS BOOK
Dedication (#ucba65687-6d81-5aaa-bfae-7e3115ca0200)
For Cathy, who has not just been my beloved wife for the last three decades, but also my best friend, my toughest critic, my staunchest supporter, my constant adviser and, in all things, my strong right arm.
Table of Contents
Cover (#ue8055657-6fb8-53d7-9ba1-7f297492451f)
Title Page (#ub2da81b9-5b9f-5a66-a890-f3c28689bf86)
Copyright (#uf9c35876-31fe-5dc3-99e2-b2d8db60282a)
Praise for Paul Finch (#uc603c627-9ff0-5540-8a87-2b779360cf27)
Dedication (#u3e5f2a54-70da-5362-a282-3d45fa3195c8)
Chapter 1 (#ua30d4741-ee05-58f2-b41c-1b628cf7dabb)
Chapter 2 (#u29040a32-b34a-54cd-9daa-907fb3f2f7ae)
Chapter 3 (#u37ad910a-7533-5102-8f99-0ed853a8e095)
Chapter 4 (#ufa3970d7-7cce-5134-a4eb-2735fcdb090e)
Chapter 5 (#u4eb9f5ac-c9cd-5686-812e-902702abe51b)
Chapter 6 (#ud701fa22-eb3d-5aa5-a1b3-3c1877b6c8c5)
Chapter 7 (#u3b0ae561-7eb9-583d-b412-a83cf461b079)
Chapter 8 (#u5ad72f9e-fb36-54c0-b991-c17cfed2bd03)
Chapter 9 (#u4153fe04-a582-54fe-9d47-6dee69c39323)
Chapter 10 (#u4d996d37-e4fb-5244-8bab-57bb210bae59)
Chapter 11 (#u870b9c61-01c3-587b-bdfe-ec8fd34a4a0b)
Chapter 12 (#u863a9dfb-66c7-5fb0-beb8-bc33a91e5379)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ucba65687-6d81-5aaa-bfae-7e3115ca0200)
Barrie and Les saw customer care as an essential part of their role as porno merchants.
Some might laugh at that notion, given pornography’s normal place in the world. It was all very well people pretending it was near enough respectable now, but the reality was that, even if you used porn, you tended not to talk about it. You weren’t generally interested in building a rapport with the providers – you just wanted to acquire your goods and go (said goods then to reside in a secret compartment in your home where hopefully no one would ever find them). No, one wouldn’t normally have thought this a business where the friendly touch would pay dividends, but Barrie and Les, who’d jointly and successfully managed Sadie’s Dungeon, their street-corner sex shop for twelve years, didn’t see it that way at all.
Certainly Barrie didn’t, and he was the thinker of the twosome.
In Barrie’s opinion, it was all about improving the customer’s experience so that he would happily return. Happily – that was the key. Yes, it was about providing quality material, but at the same time doing it with a smile and a quip or two, and being helpful with it – if someone requested information or advice, you actually tried to assist, you didn’t just stand there with that bored, bovine expression so common among service industry staff throughout the UK.
This way the customer would more likely buy from Sadie’s Dungeon again – it wasn’t difficult to understand. And it worked.
Even in this day and age, there was something apparently disquieting about the act of buying smut. Barrie and Les had seen every kind of person in here, from scruffy, drunken louts to well-dressed businessmen, and yet all had ventured through the front door in similar fashion: rigid around the shoulders, licks of sweat gleaming on their brows, eyes darting left and right as though fearful they were about to encounter their father-in-law – and always apparently eager to engage in an ice-breaking natter with the unexpectedly friendly guys behind the counter, though this was usually while their merchandise was being bagged; it was almost as if they were so relieved the experience was over that they suddenly felt free to gabble, to let all that pent-up humiliation pour out of them.
It was probably also a relief to them that Sadie’s Dungeon was so neat and tidy. The old cliché about sex shops being seedy backstreet establishments with grubby windows and broken neon signs, populated by the dirty-raincoat brigade and trading solely in well-thumbed mags and second-hand videotapes covered in suspiciously sticky fingerprints, was a thing of the past. Sadie’s Dungeon was a clean, modern boutique. OK, its main window was blacked-out and it still announced its presence at the end of Buckeye Lane with garish luminous lettering, but behind the dangling ribbons in the doorway it was spacious, clean and very well lit. There was no tacky carpet here to make you feel physically sick, no thumping rock music or lurid light show to create an air of intimidation. Perhaps more to the point, Barrie and Les were local lads, born and raised right here in Bradburn. It wasn’t a small borough as Lancashire towns went – more a sprawling post-industrial wasteland – but even for those punters who didn’t know them, at least their native accents, along with their friendly demeanour, evoked an air of familiarity. Made it feel a little more welcoming, almost wholesome.
‘Fucking shit!’ Les snarled from his stool behind the till. ‘Bastard!’
‘What’s up?’ Barrie said, only half hearing.
‘Fucking takings are crap again.’
