The Winter Killer
THE WINTER KILLER
Alex Pine
Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
Cover design by Caroline Young © HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
Cover photographs © Iona Wellmann/Trevillion Images (figure in snow) and Shutterstock.com (all other images)
Alex Pine 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 ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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: 9780008520267
Ebook Edition © October 2022 ISBN: 9780008520274
Version: 2022-07-27
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my loving wife Catherine.
I couldn’t have written it without her continued support.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introducing DI Walker and his team …
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
Introducing DI Walker and his team …
This is the third book in the DI James Walker series. For those who haven’t read The Christmas Killer and The Killer in the Snow, here is a brief introduction to the man himself and the key members of his team.
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JAMES WALKER, AGED 41
An officer with the Cumbria Constabulary based in Kendal. He spent 20 years with the Met in London before moving to the quiet village of Kirkby Abbey. He’s married to Annie, aged 37, who was born in the village and works as a teacher. The couple now have a young daughter, Bella.
DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR JEFF TANNER, AGED 47
James’s boss and a highly experienced officer who prefers to delegate rather than investigate. He’s married with a son.
DETECTIVE SERGEANT PHIL STEVENS, AGED 39
A no-nonsense detective who got off on the wrong foot with James because he was in line for the DI job when the man from London arrived on the scene and took it. But he is now a loyal colleague who is married with two children.
DETECTIVE CONSTABLE JESSICA ABBOTT, AGED 34
Youngest member of the team and of Irish and East African descent. She’s sassy, as sharp as a razor, and not afraid to speak her mind. She has the closest working relationship with James. Her fiancé, Sean, is a paramedic.
PROLOGUE
The Fells Hotel stood on the edge of Cumbria’s stunning Lake Windermere, with unhindered views across the placid water to the snow-capped hills in the distance.
As far as Jessica Abbott was concerned it was the perfect setting for a New Year’s Eve wedding. She’d been gazing around in awe since she and her fiancé, Sean, had arrived an hour ago.
All the function rooms on the ground floor glowed with a variety of bright and colourful decorations, including balloons, eye-catching floral clusters, string lights that hung from the ceilings, and an impressive array of gilded candelabras.
When she was introduced earlier to the groom, Greg Murphy, she told him how impressed she was.
‘You’ve done a really fantastic job,’ she’d said. ‘It’s spectacular and yet intimate at the same time.’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ he’d replied. ‘I wanted it to be special and memorable for everyone who came.’
Sean and Greg were members of the same golf club and saw each other fairly regularly – hence the invitation to the wedding – but Jessica hadn’t met Greg before today and he struck her as friendly and approachable, despite his reputation as a hard and ruthless businessman.
She and Sean were due to tie the knot themselves in the summer, but no way would they be able to afford something so lavish. Sean was a paramedic and she was a detective constable with the Cumbria Constabulary based in the market town of Kendal. They were going to have to use most of their savings and take out a small loan to stage a far more modest affair for their nuptials.
Money, of course, was no object to Greg, who owned a chain of hotels across Cumbria, including The Fells.
He was now standing at the altar in his smart black suit and high waistcoat, waiting for the marriage ceremony to begin. He was tall and slim, with rugged good looks and the confident bearing of a successful man. He had a mop of dark, wavy hair and a deep baritone voice that suited him.
Jessica was looking forward to meeting the bride-to-be, Libby Elliott, who was due to make an appearance at any second along with her sister, the maid-of-honour, Rachel.
The ceremony itself was just the start of the celebrations, of course. It was going to be followed by a champagne reception and photo session in the Garden Room, then the sit-down wedding breakfast in the main hall. After that was the evening do and the countdown to midnight. Holding the wedding on New Year’s Eve had been Greg’s idea, as he wanted to enter the new year as a married man, and it meant that the guests could continue partying into the early hours.
The guy had really pushed the boat out to ensure that everyone had a great time, even to the extent of offering free accommodation in the hotel’s forty rooms for those who wanted to stay the night.
Jessica and Sean had naturally taken up the offer and had already checked in to their second-floor room. It overlooked the landscaped gardens and the lake beyond.
Jessica was determined to make the most of the occasion and the weekend off as she’d been one of the officers on duty over Christmas and this was the first chance she’d had to get out and celebrate the holiday season.
The other guests seemed like a good bunch as those she’d already met had been friendly and welcoming. The first person to introduce herself had been Claire Prescott, a woman who got around with the aid of a heavy-duty walking stick and boasted that she was a sprightly seventy-one.
She and her son Ethan, who looked to be in his early to mid-thirties, had arrived at the same time as Jessica and Sean, and they’d all shared the lift going up to their rooms.
Claire had jokingly explained that she could have walked up the stairs, despite her arthritis, but wanted to conserve her energy so that she’d be able to see in the new year.
‘This is a really special day for me,’ she told them, and her voice rattled with emotion. ‘I used to be a nanny to Libby and Rachel when they were little. They never knew their real grandparents who both died before they were born and I’ve always prayed that I would see at least one of them get married before I died. And thankfully my prayers have been answered.’
She went on to say that Ethan had known the girls for years and used to work in a hotel himself, but now ran his own gift shop in Windermere.
The bride’s parents had also made a point of introducing themselves. Denise and Fraser Elliott were a pleasant couple in their mid to late sixties, and it turned out they had once lived in Kirkby Abbey, a village that was very familiar to Jessica. Not only did her boss, Detective Inspector James Walker, live there, but it was also the location of a series of brutal murders three Christmases ago. And she’d been heavily involved in that investigation. Thankfully, this Christmas had been relatively crime free all across Cumbria.
It was three o’clock when things started to happen. Two young bridesmaids walked down the aisle followed by Libby’s sister, Rachel. She wore a blush-pink dress and clutched a large bouquet of white flowers with both hands. She was a short, bespectacled woman with a full figure and a round face, and looked nothing like her sister.
Just as she took her place to the side of the altar, the room suddenly filled with the inimitable sound of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus. All heads turned towards Libby and her father as they made their grand entrance.
The bride was radiant in a white, curve-skimming satin number with a lace capelet that was beaded with sequins.
‘Wow, she looks fabulous,’ Jessica said quietly to Sean. ‘I’ll have to find out where she got that dress.’
He turned towards her and grinned. ‘I imagine it will be way out of our price range, my love.’
She pulled a face and gave a resigned nod. ‘I expect you’re right.’
The formal ceremony went off without a hitch as the couple exchanged vows and rings and in no time at all they were pronounced husband and wife. Jessica knew that, at twenty-nine, Libby was thirteen years younger than Greg, but the age gap wasn’t at all obvious when you looked at the couple.
‘They look like the perfect match to me,’ she whispered to Sean.
During the champagne reception that followed, guests mingled as waiters and waitresses moved around carrying silver trays bearing hors d’oeuvres, champagne flutes and various cocktails. Many of the guests went out into the garden where photographs were taken but no one stayed outside for long because it was bitingly cold unless you stood right next to the heaters dotted around the large, paved terrace.
The first indication Jessica got that it wasn’t going to be a perfect day for everyone came when she left Sean downstairs and went up to their room to use the toilet and put on a wrap.
She was walking along the corridor when a door was flung open and a bearded man in a suit rushed out and almost bumped into her.
‘Mi scusi,’ he said in what Jessica knew to be Italian for excuse me.
Without waiting for her to respond, he strode towards the thickly carpeted stairs. A second later, a woman appeared – Rachel Elliott, the bride’s sister.
She looked distinctly upset and after slamming the room door behind her, she hurried after the man without acknowledging Jessica.
Jessica assumed that it was a lovers’ tiff and hoped that it would soon get resolved, for both their sakes, but half an hour later she spotted Rachel standing by herself at the bar and she looked as miserable as sin. There was no sign of the bearded man.
For a fleeting moment Jessica was tempted to approach her, but Rachel’s sister suddenly appeared, so she held back. The siblings started talking and Jessica was happy to leave them to it.
Within minutes, she’d pushed it all to the back of her mind and didn’t think about it again until an hour and a half later as the wedding breakfast got under way in the main hall.
That was when Sean drew her attention to the fact that the maid-of-honour had not taken her place at the top table.
The seat between Rachel’s father and the groom was empty and it remained so throughout the meal. It was clear to everyone that Rachel’s absence was a source of either concern or irritation for those closest to her as they were no longer smiling and laughing and her father and new brother-in-law kept getting up and leaving the hall for brief spells. Her sister, however, just sat there, rigid as a fence post, and the look on her face conveyed the impression that she wasn’t happy.
It wasn’t until the meal was over and the speeches and toasts were supposed to begin that Greg Murphy stood, his expression glum, and said, ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to pause proceedings for a short while because our lovely maid-of-honour, who was due to make a speech right about now, appears to have gone AWOL. It shouldn’t take long to find her, and once Rachel is back, we can continue to enjoy the rest of the evening.’
Jessica and Sean were among the dozens of guests who got up from their chairs and joined in the search. No one quite knew what to make of what was happening and an air of panic and confusion prevailed. Those who remained in the main hall spoke in hushed voices and Libby had to be comforted by her mother after breaking down in tears.
Twenty minutes after the search began Jessica was on the terrace when she spotted one of the wedding guests rushing across the lawn towards the hotel. The man started waving his arms in the air and calling to a security guard who was shining a torch into a bush.
‘I don’t like the look of that,’ she said to Sean. ‘You stay here while I go and see what’s going on.’
She left Sean standing on the terrace as she dashed onto the lawn, approaching the security guard at the same time as the guest. By then she had taken her warrant card from her purse and was holding it up.
‘I’m a police officer,’ she said to the clearly anxious guest, a man she’d seen earlier during the ceremony. ‘Am I right in assuming you’ve found something?’
He drew in a sharp breath and nodded before telling her what it was.
His words caused every muscle and sinew in her body to freeze. Turning to the security guard, she said, ‘This is now a police matter and I’m going to have to call it in.’
CHAPTER ONE
There was a time when James Walker was rarely sober on New Year’s Eve. Like millions of other revellers, he would shed his inhibitions and enter into the spirit of the occasion with great gusto.
But that was when he was single and living in London. Back then, he and his mates in the Met had used it as an excuse to de-stress after another difficult twelve months policing the capital.
Things changed when he met and married Annie. End of year celebrations became quiet, intimate affairs, usually spent at home or at the homes of close family members.
This year was the quietest yet because they had their new daughter to consider.
Annie had given birth to Bella six months ago after years of trying to conceive, and the little darling had become the centre of their world. Right now, she was on the sofa being breastfed by her mother and James was staring at them from across the room while reflecting on just how lucky he was.