Pretty Little Things: 2018’s most nail-biting serial killer thriller with an unbelievable twist

It’s then that I hear the sound of the twenty-four-hour news programme.

‘I think they’ve found them.’

I hear the concern in his voice and now I do turn to pay attention to the TV screen, feeling as if my blood has turned to ice in my veins at what I see.

Live footage of an isolated wasteland fills the screen.

It’s early May.

Usually you’d see signs that spring is arriving, but not here. What little grass there is dotted around has grown in straggly brown tufts.

The old crumbling brickwork of an outbuilding lies off in the distance where there is a white incident tent erected. Figures – I can’t tell if they are male or female – are walking into the tent in identical white suits.

A reporter can be heard describing the scene before we see her, standing behind a police cordon, the tape vibrating against the wind sweeping in over the fields.

I hear the reporter’s words, but only snippets linger on in my head after she has spoken them.

Crude grave . . . pit . . . four bodies . . . female . . . decomposing . . . exposed to the elements . . .

My gaze drops to yesterday’s newspaper on the countertop, its edges curled. I stare at the headline.

Still Missing.

I touch the paper, turn it to face me. I look at their photographs, now filled with a deep sorrow.

I scan the headline again and the faces of each teen staring back at me, all smiles. So young.

My gaze lingers on the first girl who had gone missing, Caroline, aged just seventeen. She has been missing four weeks . . . and now, inside, my heart is aching. I know her mother, Ruth. I’d worked with her for years and we’d grown to be friends. When Caroline had first gone missing, we’d assumed she was fighting to be independent. Ruth and I had had many talks about how giving her space would lead her back to her mother when she was ready.

I think of all the words of comfort I’ve given her and feel like a fraud.

‘It’s going to take a while to ID them,’ Iain says. I look at him and his eyes meet mine. He shrugs. ‘Well, they say the soft parts are always the first to go.’

‘Eww,’ Elle says.

He must know what I’m thinking and immediately looks regretful.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Poor Ruth and Mike.’

I struggle to find any words. In this moment, all I can do is helplessly stare at the TV just as the reporter says unconfirmed reports suggest the police have every reason to believe these are the bodies of the missing girls.

Like we needed to hear that. I already knew. Things like this just don’t happen around here.

I think of Elle as a sharp twinge pulls at my insides. I feel the pain as if it were a personal loss to me. ‘God help their poor families,’ I say, snapping back into life.

Elle reaches for her drink. ‘This is yesterday’s news,’ she says between sips.

We both look at her. She shrugs.

‘Was on the internet late last night. It was a rumour going around Facebook.’

‘Elle,’ I say, ‘why didn’t you mention this?’

She shrugs again. ‘It was just a rumour then. And what’s that you’re always telling me? Don’t believe everything you see on social media?’

I look at her and remind myself that she’s soon to be seventeen, like Caroline. Three other girls will never see that birthday. I fight back tears as my mind takes me back to the day of the crash.

‘I should call Ruth.’

‘Is that such a good idea right now?’ Iain says.

‘She’s a friend and we know Caroline.’

Knew. Knew Caroline, I say to myself, and immediately feel wrong for thinking it.

‘Ruth and Mike are probably being inundated with calls and visits from the police and immediate family, Charlotte. They’ll be overwhelmed.’

‘All the more reason I should be there for her. For them both, her and Mike.’

Iain shakes his head. ‘I feel just as sad for them, as much as you do, but you’re not in their immediate circle of friends, Char.’ He looks at me with a degree of sympathy, but there’s something else there as well and I know he doesn’t want me to get too involved.

He’s right, I guess, but it feels wrong not to do anything.

I’ve helped Ruth on and off, just going out and driving around, searching. In the beginning, I helped stick up missing posters and went out walking with a group of Ruth and Mike’s friends, just to do something, to feel like there was still a chance Caroline would come back at any moment.

Then the second girl had gone missing. We didn’t know her or her family personally but we had seen them around the area.

It feels wrong not to try and salvage something positive out of this. Ruth couldn’t protect her daughter but I know I’ll do anything to protect mine.

I glance at Elle. Her eyes are glued to her iPad screen.

‘You’re not going to that party Friday,’ I say as I turn back to the sink.

Elle is naturally cross. ‘What?’ She looks at Iain. ‘Why?’ she bleats.

I turn, nod at the TV. ‘There’s someone out there killing girls your age, Elle.’ She rolls her eyes but I don’t care. ‘I need to know you’re safe and under my roof.’

‘Mum!’ Her brow is furrowed. ‘I’ll be, like, the only one not going.’

‘Kenzie isn’t going,’ I say.

Kenzie is Elle’s best friend and a bad influence on her – not that Iain agrees with me on that front.

Elle makes a face to silently ask me how I know that.

‘I saw her mother yesterday. She feels the same as me about these house parties.’

‘Her brother will be there.’

I scoff. ‘Oh, that’s a real comfort.’

Elle turns to her father then. ‘He’s eighteen, Dad, an adult.’

‘Barely,’ I say as Iain looks at me. If he doesn’t back me on this, I’ll bloody lose it. I’m tired of looking like the bad guy all the time. Lately I feel like this every day. It doesn’t help that Elle is now making puppy-dog eyes at me. She unfolds her arms and is now putting them around me.

‘I know you worry, Mum.’

Little bleeder. I love her to death, but she sure knows how to play me.

‘If I get a ride home with Jade’s mum, can I go?’

I frown, avoid her eyes. Still nothing from Iain.

‘Pleeeease, Mum?’

I look to Iain for help. I want him to say no and save me the moody silent treatment I’ll get for the rest of the weekend from Elle if I stand firm.

‘No,’ I say as I flick the television off. I can’t bear to see or hear any more right now. I feel Elle’s eyes on me just before she storms out of the room.

Iain sighs as he comes towards me. I let him hug me from behind as I stare out of the window. I can’t bring myself to look at him in case I break down.

‘Arguing with Elle isn’t going to help you,’ he says, resting his chin on my shoulder. ‘I know it’s hard with what’s going on around the villages, but we have to try and carry on.’

I suck in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t move out to the village to feel afraid,’ I say.

‘You’re saying you don’t feel safe here?’

‘It’s not about me feeling safe, Iain,’ I say, my hand now resting on his arm around my middle. ‘It’s always been about what’s best for Elle.’

I think back to the faces in the newspaper. The pixilated smiles of those teens. My heart could break for their parents.

I think of my own mother. I think of how my family was broken apart by a loss that I have never fully understood. All I know is how I will never take my eyes away from Elle, not like I used to.

This is something I fear Iain will never fully understand.

I know more than anyone the grief and fallout that comes from losing a child, no matter the circumstances.

We can hear Elle thundering around above us, the floorboards overhead creaking in protest.

Iain’s arm pulls away from me. He’s torn between staying with me and going to check on Elle.

‘I could drive Elle to this party and pick her up,’ he says. He moves away but watches me carefully. ‘She’ll be fine.’

I shrug. ‘How can you possibly know that? How can any of us?’

He looks at me, exasperated, but does his best to try and hide it. I know he’s trying to be supportive, but I also know I’m not the easiest person to placate right now.

He’s treating me like I’m glass, though, and that’s one thing I can’t stand. Being made to feel like everyone needs to tread carefully around me.

‘Elle is not Miles,’ he says. ‘She’s not any of these girls either.’

I shudder as he speaks Miles’s name.

‘This place is safe.’

‘What’s going on now—’

‘Stop obsessing about it,’ he snaps. ‘You’re going to lose Elle, if you’re not careful. Keep pushing and she’ll clam up completely. You have to let her live a little.’

I hold his stare now.

‘We did that once.’ I watch his face fall, now less assured of his own words. ‘You remember how that turned out?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, but I also remember the reasons behind it.’

He sees the hurt on my face.

‘I know it wasn’t your fault,’ he says, now coming towards me. ‘Besides, this is different.’ He looks deep into my eyes. ‘It’s just a party. Give her that little bit of freedom.’

I risk a glance at the newspaper again. Iain sees and shoves it in the bin. He avoids my eyes as he comes over and kisses me on the cheek.

‘The worst didn’t happen to you, Charlotte.’ He pats my arm, then leaves me standing there alone.

The worst didn’t happen . . .

I could have died in that crash. I didn’t. I could have been left with life-changing injuries. I wasn’t. I could have left my daughter without her mother. I didn’t. I’m here and all I can do is try to carry on as usual.

Easier said than done.

How do you completely come back from being so close to death? How can you just act like nothing’s happened? Iain suggested six months ago that I might need counselling.

I declined.

I don’t need a therapist to tell me what I already know.

I could have died – would have done, had I not been dragged from the wreckage. It’s freak events like that that make you question your own mortality, and that of the ones you love.

Is it any wonder I obsess about our daughter’s safety when there’s someone out there hurting girls our daughter’s age? Is it any wonder I put all my energy into protecting her, when I’ve seen this kind of pain before? Iain knows what happened to my brother when I was small. He knows what I saw with my own mother, and yet . . .

Carry on as usual, he says . . .

Easier said than done.

CHAPTER 2

Detective Inspector Madeleine Wood’s Tyvek paper suit rustled with each tentative step she took towards the incident tent.

She’d been warned what to expect by officers who had already been on the scene for several hours, since the initial call had come through.

A group of teens had taken a haul of alcohol and drugs up to the wasteland in the middle of the night, planning on making their mark on the world. In their heads, they’d thought they were making a stand against society, or some such rubbish.

Stumbling across a makeshift shallow grave in the dark had scared them shitless, and reduced them to crying wrecks, begging for their mummies.

Twisted limbs, flesh riddled with insects, and a smell that would stay with you no matter how many times you washed would do that to anybody, even if these teens were usually as hard as nails.

Madeleine tucked a few strands of long auburn hair that had worked loose from her ponytail back inside the suit’s hood.

‘Guv,’ said DC Braithwaite as she approached.

Madeleine nodded. ‘Charis.’

DC Charis Brathwaite looked as solemn as ever. Devoid of much emotion, she resembled Madeleine’s own mother – strong and silent, with an air about her that always gave the impression of being permanently pissed off with something or somebody.

Madeleine stopped beside Charis at the entrance to the incident tent, watching her pale face carefully, but she wasn’t giving much away.

‘What’s your gut telling you?’ she said.

She looked grim and pulled her face mask back over her chin. ‘It’s got to be them. Has to be.’

Madeleine swallowed hard.

She knew it to be true also, but part of her had still silently prayed she was wrong; that she wouldn’t be giving the news to heartbroken parents, their world now devoid of any hope of finding their child alive.

She took a deep breath and went inside.

There were four bodies in the grave in front of her. Four bodies in different stages of decomposition. Four bodies that were partially clothed; some feet missing shoes, socks . . . simple things that would have made them look more human.

One thing was for certain, though.

The four bodies were definitely female.

The missing girls had been found.

A formal ID would follow, but Madeleine knew it was them. Their names had been whittled down to just their first names in her head. That was all she needed to know. Names and ages. That was enough to make her determined to see justice done.

Caroline – 17.

Juliet – 16.

Melissa – 15.

Katie – 15.

Despite being used to crime scenes by now, some occasionally very brutal in nature, she still felt stirrings inside her that made her want to turn around, walk out of the incident tent and just keep on going, walking across the wasteland and never looking back.

‘It’s going to take a while to formally ID them,’ Charis said, swallowing hard.

Madeleine squatted down close to the pit. Seeing the bodies in situ was a necessity but it was a hard scene to take in and digest.

Casting her dark-brown eyes over the remains, she caught sight of wisps of copper-coloured hair, just poking out from beneath another body.

Madeleine’s thoughts were immediately drawn to the photograph of Juliet Edwards her parents had given to the police when she first went missing. It had been taken at her sixteenth birthday party. In the photograph, Madeleine had noted that, around a face that was still full, puppy-fat yet to be fully shed, Juliet had beautiful green eyes, complemented by a shade of hair that reminded Madeleine of the colour of autumn leaves.

Madeleine looked deeper into the crude grave and saw the willowy limbs and ash-blonde hair that she knew had to belong to Caroline White.

The side of Caroline’s face was only just visible but Madeleine could see one gold-star stud in her earlobe.

Madeleine knew those earrings had been given to Caroline by her mother the Christmas just gone. The enormity of what she was facing was starting to really hit home now she had the bodies of the young girls here in front of her.

‘Guv,’ Charis said, coughing, trying to clear the lump in her throat as she thought of her own daughter safe back at home with her mother-in-law. ‘We have some DCs doing rounds of house-to-house and specialist officers with the teens who found the . . . pit.’ She avoided using the word ‘grave’. This wasn’t worthy of being considered that.

Madeleine nodded a response but her attention was drawn to the forensic pathologist hovering in the corner of her peripheral vision.

Dennis Roach pulled his face mask down under his chin, although he was clearly reluctant to, given the scene around them.

‘It’s going to take time, as you might expect,’ he said, gesturing to the bodies. ‘There’s a lot of insect activity and there are various stages of decomposition . . . not to mention there’s been some dismemberment, likely from animal activity.’ He looked like he had a nasty taste in his mouth and Madeleine could more than relate.

This was a mess.

‘Understood,’ she said. ‘Too early to say, I suppose, but any indication on cause of death?’

Roach grimaced. ‘As you say, very hard to even gauge at this point but I can see signs of trauma to one of the victim’s necks, just here,’ he said, gesturing towards the nearest body.

Madeleine looked at the body lying on top of the rest, eyes open, face pointing skyward.

Katie Allen.

Madeleine knew it had to be her. She’d not long since pinned the girl’s photograph to the board in the incident room back at the station, maybe two weeks ago at most.

‘Her throat has been cut,’ Roach said.

Madeleine visibly jolted as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. Her eyes were drawn to a savage cut right across the girl’s neck, almost from ear to ear.

It looked deep, although it was hard to tell under the dried blood and grime.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness threatened to swallow Madeleine whole, right there and then.

She quickly left the tent.

*

After her suit had been taken and bagged up, Madeleine sat in her car, legs hanging out the door. Her face frozen, rigid, staring ahead at the cars and news vans that had turned up far beyond the police cordon.

Cameras rolling, reporters gesturing to the cameras, photographers with zoom lenses, vying for that perfect shot to sell on.

‘Is this what four young girls’ lives are worth, what they’ve been reduced to? A sideshow?’ Charis said as she approached the car. She looked back over her shoulder, sweeping back her long brown hair from her eyes as the wind picked up, howling across the wasteland.

‘Just doing their job,’ Madeleine said, voice drenched in sarcasm.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. What kind of monster do you have to be to do something like this?’

‘Monster? No,’ Madeleine said, shaking her head. ‘This person isn’t a monster. Monsters aren’t real, and besides, whoever did this doesn’t see themselves as a monster, villain or bogeyman.’

She swung her legs into the car and her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, knuckles white. ‘This person is the hero in their own story.’

‘Hero,’ Charis scoffed.

‘In their eyes.’

‘They won’t like how the media will portray them.’

‘I know,’ Madeleine said. ‘And that’s a problem. It could make the killer impulsive, more than they appear to be already.’

‘You think they could up the stakes?’

‘It’s what I’d do if I were the killer. They have some kind of message to send. If they feel they’re close to being caught, or being ridiculed . . .’ Madeleine clipped her seatbelt into the slot then turned to look up at Charis. ‘Where are we on that list of newly released sex offenders?’

‘Some have had visits but nothing of note so far.’

‘Violent offenders?’

‘One released in Luton, two weeks before Caroline went missing, but he has an alibi. CCTV confirms his whereabouts that Sunday.’

Madeleine cast her eyes over the wasteland, the desolate horizon towards the hills beyond. ‘You’d need a vehicle to bring the bodies here,’ she said. ‘The actual murder scene must be close.’

Charis nodded. ‘It’s mostly farmland out this way.’

‘Organise some officers to look around the farms, outbuildings, barns, that kind of thing.’ Madeleine’s mobile rang before Charis could respond. The caller ID display revealed it was DC Alex Farr.

‘Alex,’ she said, pressing her mobile to her ear.

‘Guv, I’ve had Mispers on the phone.’

Madeleine felt her insides knot and her mouth was immediately dry. She struggled to find her voice.

‘Shit,’ was all she managed, her voice low, but Charis, who was standing over her, drew closer, her face now paler than before.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Alex. ‘Another one’s been reported missing. Same age range, missing under similar circumstances.’

Madeleine’s body felt stiff. She ended the call and took a few deep breaths before remembering Charis was standing over her.

By the look on her face, Madeleine knew the other woman already understood.

‘Not another one?’ she said, the disbelief clear in her voice, wanting it desperately not to be so.

Madeleine nodded, and said, ‘Head back to Sutton House. Team brief in an hour.’

CHAPTER 3

Sutton House, home to Chiltern & South Bucks LPA, where Madeleine and her team were based, was a dull-looking, grey-brick building built in the mid-seventies.

The official main HQ for Thames Valley Police was in Amersham and Madeleine was part of the Major Crime Unit, the Force CID, which was made up of a number of smaller teams based in the local policing areas (LPA).

Being based at Sutton House rather than in the bigger hub of a town or city, Madeleine sometimes felt she was a little restricted and not always fulfilling her potential. Most crimes she had dealt with included robberies, home invasions and violent crime on occasion, but murder was rare.

Suddenly finding herself involved in a high-profile murder and missing persons investigation that was already fairly complex, she was feeling the pressure of the enormity of it all.

She was heading up a large team of people, and she knew you were only as good as your last case, your last success, in the eyes of her superiors. She wanted to obtain justice for the families that had been left destroyed by the events unfolding around them, but the thought of screwing up frightened her more than she’d realised it would.

She had been offered a small office, almost cupboard-like, but she’d declined it, preferring to be in the thick of things.

Right now, she was in the deep end, and silently prayed she wouldn’t drown.

Charis was sitting with DC Farr at the far side of the large, open-plan room, packed tight with desks and equipment, with a large board at the front that had a photograph of each victim pinned to it, with various information that had been collected, including key points like the date and time they had last been seen.

Madeleine stared at each photograph in turn and, as she had done many times before, each time a new photograph had been added, silently promised them she’d find them and bring them home again.

Now, though, she would be bringing them back to their parents only for them to have to bury them.

The weight of this was heavy on her mind, on her soul.

The fact that she’d just been handed another photograph to pin to the expanding board of information made her feel ill.

She tried to pull herself together. To keep herself focused and try not to absorb too much of the sadness playing out in front of them.

Young life cut brutally short, with another innocent likely to end up the same way if she and her team couldn’t find her in time.

‘Bryony Keats,’ she said, pinning a 10 x 8 photograph to the board as everyone came together to huddle around the large table in the centre of the room.

All eyes were now on the photograph of a petite teen wearing a jumper bearing the logo of the school she attended. Chestnut-coloured hair framed a face of delicate features, and flowed around her shoulders. A pretty, ornate, metal hair clip held back a section of hair from her face, revealing wide, dark, expressive eyes looking directly at the camera.

Although her mouth was pulled into a smile, it didn’t reach her eyes. Something Madeleine was more than conscious of.

‘Bryony is seventeen years old and lives in the village of Bronze Mead, just on the outskirts of Kennington. She’s a sixth-form student at Kings Hill Secondary School.’ She paused as she sat down at the far end of the table.

She then took a moment to look at her team.

‘Bryony’s been missing since last Wednesday.’

A collective silence fell over those gathered at the table.

‘As you’re already aware,’ Madeleine said, ‘the bodies of four young girls were found on the Heath Edge wasteland late last night by a group of teenagers. It quickly became apparent that they were the bodies of the four missing teens, although official identification will take a little longer due to the state of each body.’

She breathed out heavily.

‘To have the families formally ID the girls is out of the question. That’s the advice we’re being given.’