Flesh and Blood (A DI Amy Winter Thriller) by Caroline Mitchell (best love novels of all time .TXT) 📗

Mo,’ she had told her therapist. ‘I won’t answer to anything else.’ By reverting to her old nickname, she could keep the door to the past open a crack.

‘I’d like to try something different. It may be beneficial to you,’ the therapist said eventually. ‘It could help you to open up – if that’s what you want.’

‘What is it?’ Mo rubbed her shoulder. She felt stiff from sitting hunched for so long.

‘Hypnotism. It’ll help you to relax. We can explore your past in a safe environment.’

‘You’re not going to make me dance around the room thinking I’m a chicken, are you?’ She crossed her legs and arms, watching dust motes sparkle beneath the shaft of light flooding into the room.

The therapist broke into a smile. ‘There are a lot of misconceptions about hypnotism. Nobody can make you do anything you don’t want to. But if you’d rather not go there . . .’

‘Do it,’ Mo said. The worst had already happened. She had nothing to lose. Her fingers twitched for a cigarette. She needed something to hold. She swallowed, still able to taste her last nicotine hit on her tongue.

Within minutes, her therapist was counting backwards, in a warm, soothing voice, until Mo’s limbs relaxed.

Then she was twelve years old again, with Jacob’s chubby fingers poking her face. He used to wake her in the mornings by lifting her eyelid. But today they were clamped shut. Mo could feel his sticky little fingers, prodding her cheek. ‘Me hungry, Momo.’

Yawning, Mo blinked as she took in her brother’s face. Jacob’s blue eyes were as vast and infinite as the sea. Mo had known better than to ask him where their mother was. Steve, her stepfather, had won some money on the horses yesterday, and last night he’d taken her mum to the pub. Neither of them would emerge from bed until at least twelve o clock, when Steve would bark at Mo to make him bacon and egg sandwiches. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Mo slipped out of bed and pulled her tracksuit bottoms on.

As Mo scraped some butter on to Jacob’s toast, her thoughts wandered to school the next day.

‘Where are you now?’ The therapist’s voice floated into Mo’s consciousness as she glided through time.

‘I’m in school . . .’ Mo paused. ‘There’s a new girl. It’s lunchtime, and she’s just sat next to me. Ow!’

‘What’s happened?’

‘I was about to talk to her, but Lizzie’s just punched me in the back.’ Mo recalled how she had jolted forward, Lizzie’s punch making her drop her fork on to her plate. ‘Hey, new girl.’ Mo gritted her teeth as Lizzie’s squeaky voice pierced her consciousness.

‘You don’t wanna sit next to Puddles.’ Lizzie’s shrill laughter filled the air. ‘Unless you like the smell of pee!’ Lizzie’s group of hangers-on guffawed with laughter, right on cue. ‘Come on.’ She gestured at the new girl to join them. Nobody said no to Lizzie Hall.

The new girl threw Mo an apologetic gaze before being whisked away. Quietly seething, Mo sat, her small, skinny hands curled into fists.

Lizzie’s mum was the headmistress, so Lizzie got away with murder. Nobody dared to speak out against her. Mo’s features hardened as she remembered Lizzie’s simpering face, her button nose and cartoonishly big eyes. She was sickly-sweet and surprisingly manipulative for her age.

It wasn’t as if things were any easier at home. Mo was the outsider. Unlike her sibling, Steve wasn’t her dad, and there wasn’t a day that passed when he didn’t remind her of how worthless she was. Mo stared without seeing, frozen in the past as his taunts rebounded in her mind. Perhaps it hadn’t begun when she was twelve. Maybe the root of her behaviour went back farther than that. Lots of kids lived in abusive households. Being bullied at school was a rite of passage where she had come from. But not all kids turned out to be murderers . . . did they?

CHAPTER FOUR

Monday 26 July

As Monday mornings went, today was up there with the best of them as far as DC Molly Baxter was concerned. She packed her things, feeling the same shot of excitement that preceded every big case. DCI Donovan had informed them they were to drop everything and head to Clacton to give them a ‘dig out’. She couldn’t believe how quickly he’d organised it, given how slowly things moved in the police. His words were grave as he informed them of the loss of his old colleague, his face strained as he spoke of her death. It gave Molly chills to think of a fellow police officer being murdered on duty. You joined the job to help victims, not to become one. But she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t secretly thrilled to be asked along. Despite the incident being reported as suicide, Donovan was adamant Carla’s death was part of something bigger, and Molly was on board with that. Given her short service in the police, she was lucky to fill such a valued role. She rifled through her office drawers, taking the pens and notebooks she could not do without. She scrunched up an empty crisp packet and threw it in the bin. Next to her, Steve Moss was clearing his emails. She could tell that he was secretly pleased too. None of them could have anticipated just how high-profile their team would become.

She had DI Winter to thank for that. As she’d got to know her better, she’d discovered that her work was more than a passion; it was a compulsion. When her background was revealed, everything clicked into place. It was hardly any wonder she was desperate to make up for past wrongs. The dark side of her parentage must have clung like tar. Molly could sympathise. She knew how hard it was to let the past go. Jack and Lillian Grimes were a horror-movie couple – as evil as they came. What must it have been like, growing up in a house