Fallen from Grace , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd - Sarah Heywood

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52 pages

English

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''Justice always comes at a cost to those who deliver it.''Jessica Denning is the newest addition to the Scotland Yard Homicide department, charged with the responsibility to find the truth.But when she and her partner are given their first high-profile case, she soon realises the truth is not what some want her to find. When shattering secrets come crashing into her life, she begins to wonder if there is anyone she can trust and if she is truly ready for what she will have to face…

Sujets

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
Date de parution	29 novembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528965118
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Fallen from Grace
Sarah Heywood
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-11-29
Fallen from Grace About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information©
About the Author
The author is 19 years old and this is her first novel. She wrote Fallen from Grace when she was 17.
She has been reading thrillers from a young age and draws inspiration from those. A lot of the themes are adapted from her personal experiences. She has designed the characters from influential people in her life.
Sarah hopes to help people who are going through mental health illnesses.
About the Book
‘Justice always comes at a cost to those who deliver it.’
Jessica Denning is the newest addition to the Scotland Yard Homicide department, charged with the responsibility to find the truth.
But when she and her partner are given their first high-profile case, she soon realises the truth is not what some want her to find.
When shattering secrets come crashing into her life, she begins to wonder if there is anyone she can trust and if she is truly ready for what she will have to face…
Dedication
For Mum, Anna, Luke and Jade.
Copyright Information©
Sarah Heywood (2019)
The right of Sarah Heywood to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528965118 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ

Jessica walked towards the crime scene lost in the feeling of tiredness. This wasn’t the first time. She had been to countless crime scenes. Declan was waiting by his car for her. She was quite late to the scene. She glanced down at her wristwatch, twenty minutes past. Twenty minutes late. She stared up at the sky. The clouds had been painted orange by the sunset. She was suddenly blinded by the flash of a camera bulb. Damn paparazzi . She shielded her face from the lens of the cameras. There weren’t many there but they were always persistent. It was always the same. The vans parked bumper to bumper, each reporter pushing and cheating for the story. They were different but no better than the criminals they wrote about. Some of them.
Jessica felt an invisible blow to the stomach. She slid her left leg back, she was excepting the hit. This was a bad one. She knew instantly it was the vigilante. She could always tell. That’s what made her a good detective. She knew things. As though she could see them before they happened. The Fallen Angel was back. She tensed her hands and tightly shut her eyes. She had dealt with them on a case last year. They had found the body in a forest a few miles away. The Angel had killed a man for abducting a young girl. They tracked the note and found the girl locked inside an abandoned building. They were too late to save her but they would never have found her without the Angel.
The first question that came to her was how they found out about these crimes? Jessica brought her hand to her stomach and gripped her shirt. The pain was getting worse. She wiped her brow with the corner of her sleeve.
All the cases had etched away at her. She had seen hidden disease run through the city. Unseen—until it reared its ugly head.
It was a man with frosted lips and pale skin. His face was pulled back into the wrinkle that had been cut deep. Late fifties, Jessica thought. She could tell from the discolouration on his skin.
He was wearing the bottom half of a dark business suit and perfectly polished black shoes. It was a high quality brand—a rich man.
“You already know it’s the Angel.”
He gestured down to the victims back. She nodded and looked down at his bare back. The Angel always left two long slits down their victims’ back. Like the mark of wings. Blood was still spilling from his shoulder, the blades pushing up against the exposed flesh.
“I figured it was.”
She crouched down next to the body. His face was badly beaten. She leaned forward and noticed a small piece of paper lodged beneath the body. She pulled across his right arm, limply pushing it above his head. She took a second and when she spoke her voice was softer. She used the femininity to assert her power.
“I need an evidence bag. I found the note.”
She reached across and carefully pulled the note out.
She unfolded it, as blood dripped onto the cobblestone roadside. She rubbed her thumb across the smooth surface, revealing a note written in neat handwriting. Declan held the open evidence bag beside her. She slipped it into the bag and stood up. Jessica looked past him and watched the techs checking the area for prints.
The note read small details of different crimes, each one committed by the man who lay now like trash at the side of the road. Jessica knew what that meant. It was the calling card of the famed vigilante who had been responsible for so many previous crimes. The media had named them the Fallen Angel, in that the Angel wanted justice but had become like the criminals they despised.
She took off her blue gloves, remembering the code when dealing with the Fallen Angel. The more violent the death, the worse the crimes. It reminded her of something she had once read, but she could never remember what. It annoyed her. It’s funny how the mind wanders sometimes.
Stanley Watts, the coroner’s assistant, came marching into the tarp. An annoyed groan escaped Jessica’s lips. Two large men followed behind him. They nodded at Jessica and lifted the body up onto the black stretcher. Watts zipped up the bag. The body was bloated and filled the plastic.
“The coroner will take a look in the van,” said Watts. “Media are everywhere.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you know who the victim is?”
He unzipped the bag down to the corpse’s chest and pointed down, a smug smile spreading across his face. He knew something she wanted and he was going to play with it. Tease her. Jessica looked down at the body and examined the features. His face was so beaten she couldn’t tell who it was. An instant sense of nausea hit her.
“No, who is he?”
Jessica was nervous and for a second no one moved.
“Callum Hart. Entrepreneur and third richest man in London.”
Jessica squirmed a little when he said it. She crouched down besides the building again, staring at the puddle of blood for a moment before standing up and leaving the cover of the tarp. The coroner’s van was parked across the field under the cover of a graffiti-covered building. Declan followed her to the coroner’s van and opened the van door. The strong smell of flesh hit her as she stepped in. The coroner stood over the body, the bag unzipped. He wore a blue jumpsuit, covering his expensive suit. He had a cleanly shaven head and thick muscular arms. Sweat dripped down his tanned forehead and onto his thick eyebrows. Suddenly, he seemed depressed. He turned away from the body. Watt gripped his shoulder and squeezed it tightly. He pulled away and stepped back into the light above the body. He looked tired; his shoulders were slumped down. He had done this job for years and it was starting to take it out of him.
Once he noticed the detectives, he stood up and unzipped the jumpsuit down to his waist. He wore a purple-striped tie tight around his thin neck. His red dragon tattoo peeked out from his collar. The van was ice-cold as the wind bashed against the metal side, echoing through the tight space. He spoke in a heavy accent and used British to assert his authority. But he was still good at it, and still had the passion in his eyes when he stood before a body, this made him a legend in the department and someone Jessica had the deepest respect for.
“Detective Denning.”
“What have you got for me?”
He rolled off his gloves and threw them down on the shelf behind. He flicked the lid of a bottle of Evian and gulped it down. The water trickled down his neck and onto his crisp white collar. He was expected to be very masculine but he showed quite the opposite as he looked at the body and tears filled his eyes.
“It was definitely the vigilante who killed him, you can tell from the severity of his wounds. No defensive wounds, but he was restrained by the wrists, and the cause of death was a single bullet in the head.”
He knelt back down, zipped up the black bag, and covered the body. His knees were covered in lime grass stains. He scrubbed hard at them and grunted.
Jessica felt her chest tighten as the smell of decaying flesh filled the small space. She pushed out of the door, breathing in the clean air in a large gulp, sickness fading from her stomach. Declan leaned against the side of the van and fired up his e-cig. Apocolypse bubbleum. Jessica loved the bright blue colour of the liquid. He pressed the button five times in quick succession, the pen it up and beeped. He breathed in the smoke in long heavy drags. He blew clouds of smoke towards Jessica. The strawberry scent cleared her lungs. He jumped back up to his feet and slipped his e-cig back into his jacket pocket.
“What’s the plan?”
“I want to go back to the station and review the evidence.”
She signalled over to the crowds of reporters.
“We’ll need to get through there.”
“I’ll sort it.”
Declan made his way through the crowds of reporters, stood behind the yellow tape. Jessica waited behind, glaring at her watch. She was hungry, but she knew she wouldn’t have time to eat.
When Declan cleared the path, he signalled Jessica over.
As Jessica pushed through the group of people, a young reporter