Crime Novel Excerpts

Locked in Death, published by Robert Hale at the end of May, is the second Penny Lane mystery. The first few hundred words of the prologue set the dark mood for the book's opening, and give readers an idea of what Penny will find herself up against.

Locked in Death

Prologue

The gravel car-park in front of the tall office block was almost empty. Sodium street lighting and the lights from the windows of offices still occupied by workaholics turned shallow potholes brimming with dirty rainwater into pools of liquid silver and gold. The weather gave an elderly black BMW parked close to a high, crumbling breeze-block wall the illusory gloss of a vehicle driven straight out of the dealer's showroom. Affixed to its roof by a tubular metal rack, a dull silver luggage box was a curvaceous fibreglass capsule glistening with droplets of recent rain.

At 7.30 that cold, damp evening, a black Jeep SUV with dark tinted windows turned out of the main road traffic and slipped silently down the slope into the walled enclosure. Its lights winked out. Tyres crunching, it executed a wide, leisurely half circle that brought it to a halt alongside the BMW. The sound of the engine was an expensive murmur. Other than a faint cloud of white vapour drifting from the chrome exhaust, there was nothing to advertise the vehicle's presence.

Five minutes after the SUV had parked, a tall man emerged from the office-block's swing doors and jogged towards the car-park. His approach was noted in the SUV's mirrors. Doors clicked open on both sides of the vehicle. Two men stepped out. They were dressed in black polo-necked sweaters and black jeans, and carried the bulk of men who habitually pumped iron but trod with the weightlessness of ballet dancers on expensive training shoes.

One of them walked around the vehicle, then both stood waiting. The tall man jogged to join them. The three men came together in the shadows between the two vehicles.

The man from the office wore faded blue jeans and a blue-and-white hooped rugby shirt. He had hastily thrown on a dark fleece. Now he zipped it up to the neck, huddling into it as if chilled. When he spoke, he was breathing more heavily than might have been expected from such a short run. His voice was low, tense, a little unsteady.

'Got him?'

'In the back,' one of the other men said. 'Dead to the world.'

'So let's get it over with.'

The taller of the two men from the Jeep stepped silently around the vehicle and swung open the back door. He bent to reach deep inside, clutched something with both hands, and heaved. A heavy weight slid towards him. A pair of trainers came into view, then stone-washed jeans. There was a soft snicking sound as cloth caught on metal. He straightened. His eyes glittered in the street lighting as he looked around and waited.

His companion joined him. He too stood waiting.

The man from the office turned away. In the mixture of fluorescent and sodium lighting his face had taken on a pale-green sheen. There was a faint jingling as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. He turned to the BMW and looked up at the luggage box on the roof. After a moment's hesitation he reached up and used one of the keys to open the box's two locks. Stretching, straining, he pushed the box's lid and let it fall open.

'OK, get him up there.'

The two men from the Jeep dragged the man out of the back by his feet, face down. They dragged him all the way, without pause, keeping hold of his ankles. The upper body dropped limply, heavily. His face and chest smacked into a pool in the gravel. Water splashed. One of the men holding him chuckled.

'The budgie has landed.'

The man in the fleece said, 'Is he dead?'

That brought a broad grin. 'What is it they say about bears and woods?'

'For Christ's sake get on with it.'

And now the man in the fleece was looking about him nervously. He watched one of the men walk backwards between the two vehicles, dragging the limp body. The watcher's eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted in a grimace as the face scraped across the rough ground. Then both the big men bent to the body., They clamped their hands on the clothing and effortlessly heaved the man to chest height, held him against the wet, slippery side of the BMW. The car rocked, creaked. One man grinned.

'So this is what they call a dead weight,' he said.

'Dead easy,' the other man said, and together they pushed upwards, then turned the body and slid it head first until the torso was in the box, the legs dangling.

'Hold him there,' one of them said.

He jogged to the front of the BMW, and vaulted onto the bonnet which crackled beneath his weight. Luggage boxes take up most of a car's roof. This was a big one, so there was nowhere for him to go. He leaned forward, braced knees and thighs against the windscreen, his chest against the front of the box. Then he used both hands to drag the body all the way up.

His watching companion grinned, clapped slowly, mockingly.

Still braced, the man on the BMW's bonnet again grasped the body with both hands and tried to fit it into the box so that the lid could be closed. But he quickly discovered that a body, unconscious or dead, tends to flop: try to position it one way, and it will go the other. After a few minutes he cursed softly, let the body sag loosely and stood up straight on the bonnet, arching his back.

'Bastard's too big, too heavy, and the container's too small.'

'Bend him the other way,' the man from the office said. 'On his side, foetal position.'

'Back to the womb,' the other watching man said.

'Let there be darkness,' said the man on the bonnet. He leaned forward again and flopped the torso onto its side in the box, used his strength to hold it there while he adjusted its position: arms folded across the chest, thighs up against arms, feet against buttocks. Then, breathing hard, he drew back and slammed down the lid.

17 May 2010

Watch this space for an excerpt from the latest Jack Scott. From the Home page you'll know I'm still working on it. What is it they say, a woman's work is never done, a man's never started?