The Deepest Cut Read online

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  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

  Epilogue

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  The Deepest Cut

  ISBN # 978-1-78651-150-8

  ©Copyright Conor Corderoy 2017

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright April 2017

  Edited by Jamie D. Rose

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2017 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Simmering and a Sexometer of 1.

  Heat

  THE DEEPEST CUT

  Conor Corderoy

  Book two in the Heat series

  Murdoch never wanted to love, but once he learned to, someone stole his woman. Now—whoever they are—he wants to make them pay.

  A young woman has just been brutally murdered by a serial killer. Her father is the supreme crime lord in London, and he wants Murdoch to find that killer. But Murdoch has promised Maria he is done with his old life. Then his best friend’s niece is killed in the same horrific way, and he knows the killings are a message—for him. But from who? Someone is out to get him—and the woman he loves.

  His search leads him into the darkest reaches of the serial killer’s mind. But when he thinks he has his man, things take an even more sinister twist. Suddenly, he is in a desperate chase across Spain and into Morocco and Algeria. The prize is Maria’s life, even at the cost of his own sanity.

  Because what he finds there is too horrific to believe.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Lolly Adamopoulos,

  who is adorable, fills the world with sunlight,

  and always made me happy.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Google: Google Inc.

  Clarice Cliff: Clarice Cliff Limited

  The Big Bang Theory: Chuck Lorre Productions, Warner Brothers Television

  Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Allied Artist Pictures

  Camel: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company

  Zippo: Zippo Manufacturing Company

  TVR Daemon: TVR Manufacturing Limited

  Old Bushmills: The Old Bushmills Distillery Company Limited

  Martini: Martini and Rossi Corporation

  Odeon: Odeon Cinemas Holdings Limited

  Armani: Giorgio Armani S.p.A.

  Gucci: Gucci America Inc.

  Jameson: Irish Distillers Limited

  Whatsapp: Whatsapp Inc.

  Harley-Davidson: H-D USA LLC

  Miss Marple: Agatha Christie

  Nero’s Coffee Shop: Caffe Nero Group Limited

  NanoSoft: Nanosoft, LLC

  Sabatier: Rousselon Freres & CIE Joint Stock Company

  Harrods: Harrods Corporate Management Limited Company

  Smith & Wesson: Smith & Wesson

  Dirty Harry: Warner Brothers

  Jaguar: Jaguar Land Rover Limited

  Boy Scout: Boy Scouts of America Corporation

  IKEA: Ikea Svenska Aktiebolag Corporation

  Formica: The Diller Corporation

  Ben & Jerry’s: Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc.

  The Grain Shop: The Grain Shop Limited

  Driza-Bone: Driza-Bone Pty Ltd.

  Mercedes: Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft Corporation

  Volkswagen: Volkswagen of America Inc.

  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams

  Abraxas: Santana

  All You Need Is Love: Lennon-McCartney

  Superman: DC Comics General Partnership

  Perspex: Ineos Acrylics UK Limited

  Range Rover: Jaguar Land Rover Limited

  Sig Sauer: Sig Sauer Inc.

  Land Rover: Jaguar Land Rover Limited

  Hertz: The Hertz Corporation

  Jeep: FCA US LLC

  Desert Eagle: Saeilo Enterprises Inc.

  Yale: Assa Abloy Group

  Apple: Apple Inc.

  Audi: Audi Aktiengesellschaft Corporation

  Colt: New Colt Holding Corp.

  Toyota: Toyota Motors Corporation

  Carlsberg: Carlsberg A/S Corporation

  DHL: Deutsche Post AG Corporation

  Typhoon FGR4: Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH

  Avis: Wizard Co. Inc.

  Photoshop: Adobe Systems Incorporated

  The Canterville Ghost: Oscar Wilde

  Godzilla: Tomoyuki Tanaka, Ishiro Honda, Eiji Tsubaraya

  Indiana Jones: George Lucas

  Waterford: WWRD Ireland IPCO LLC

  Angels and Demons: Dan Brown

  The Illuminati Papers: Robert Anton Wilson

  Casablanca: Warner Brothers

  Michelin: Michelin North America Inc.

  Balkan Sobrani: Gallaher Group

  Cartier: Cartier International AG Corporation

  American Express: American Express Company Corporation

  Cristal: Champagne Louis Roederer France Joint Stock Company

  Chapter One

  The call came at four a.m.

  I groped for my phone. “Murdoch.”

  The geothermal disturbance on the other end was Russian Pete. “Murdoch…is Peter.”

  “Pete. It’s four a.m. What do you want?”

  “I need speak with you.”

  “Now?”

  “Da. Now…”

  * * * *

  It was raining. It was always raining these days—damp and warm. I sat in the darkened car, listening to the liquid drumming and thinking of Maria, lying
warm and soft in our bed. It would be first light in just over an hour. She wouldn’t be up for another two. I pushed open the door and stepped into the dark road. Wet light rippled on the tarmac. Holland Park was on my left. Across the road on my right a terrace of Georgian houses slept with blind eyes behind the amber streetlights.

  I loped through the tepid rain toward the black bulk of the park gates. The momentary glow of a cigarette told me one of Pete’s men was waiting there for me. When I drew level, he dropped the butt in a puddle where it hissed and died. I said, “Where’s Pete? What’s this about?”

  He jerked his head toward the interior of the park, among the black shadows of the trees. “Better Pete tell you.”

  I followed him through the big iron gate, wondering how he came to have a key. Then he led the way into the shadows under the great horse chestnuts. Our feet made damp crunching noises on the gravel.

  He said, in his Russian baritone, “Be gentle with Peter. He is weeping lot this morning.”

  “Weeping?”

  He just nodded silently and we went deeper into the woodland, where the rain was just a drizzle on the leaves above our heads.

  They were at the statue of Lord Holland, over the wooden bridge by the pond—a small huddle of them—Russian Pete and two of his henchmen, three big black silhouettes surrounded by the glimmer of the rain and the puddles. And there was something on the ground. It looked like a bundle of saturated rags. Pete turned to face me as I approached. Even in the darkness, I could see his eyes were swollen and his face was wet. It wasn’t from the rain.

  I pulled out my Camels and offered him one. He shook his head. I lit up and blew smoke into the spitting drizzle. The bundle of rags was a young woman, lying on her back in the mud, staring up into the trees. Her coat was rumpled and twisted. Her arms were laid symmetrically by her sides and her legs were straight. A red rose rested in her mouth. The black handle of a large kitchen knife protruded from her left breast and there was a gaping, bloody hole where her belly should have been. Whoever had killed her had taken the trouble to lay her out there with care. I stood smoking for a while.

  Eventually, I flicked ash and said, “Who is she? She family?”

  Nobody said anything for a long moment. The guys just stood looking at Pete with the rain on their faces.

  Finally, Pete said what I had already guessed but didn’t want to believe, “She is my daughter, Eva.”

  I nodded. I knew what this meant, why I was there, and I didn’t like it. “Who did it? Do you know?”

  He shook his head. I looked again at the body, the way it was laid out—the rose, the knife in her heart, the savage wound in the abdomen. “Someone trying to scare you, move in on your patch…?”

  He shook his head again. “Nobody.”

  I dropped my butt into a puddle. It hissed and winked out. I crouched down by her side, pulled out my pen torch and played the beam over her face and neck. Under the raindrops, her skin was gray-blue. There were blotches of purple bruising on her throat, like she’d been choked, but her blouse was saturated with blood, so she hadn’t been strangled to death, just enough to make her unconscious and pliant.

  I moved the beam down to her belly. I’ve seen some pretty nasty things in my time. I’ve even done a few of them myself when the occasion called for it. But this was about as horrific as it got. Her entire abdomen had been torn out. There had been no surgical precision here, just raw, brutal animal ferocity. I heard Pete choke and sob behind me and I switched off the torch.

  I stood and said, “Who found her?”

  Pete had turned away, his face hidden in his hands.

  The guy who’d met me at the gate piped up, “Park policeman on his rounds. Half pass three. He recognize her because she come to park in mornings for coffee and see the paintings exhibition. She like this park.”

  I said, “A cop? Why didn’t he—?”

  He knew what I was going to ask and interrupted me, “Cops know Russian Pete, da? He pay their mortgages…” There was some stifled laughing. Pete turned to face me, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. His voice was raw. “They know that anything of interest to me, they report to me. It is courtesy. Chief constable is good friend of mine. You know…”

  I nodded. I knew. That explained the keys. Anyone who was anyone in this town was in Russian Pete’s pocket.

  I said, “So, where are the cops now?”

  “On their way. We have twenty minutes.”

  I stared at him. “For what? What do you want from me?”

  He held my eye a moment then jerked his head toward what was left of his daughter. “If police investigate, maybe it is years before killer is found. And when they find him, what?” He shrugged his huge shoulders and looked around at the dark woodlands. “Maybe he go to prison for twenty years, to secure wing with psychologists to help him.” He shook his head and spat on the ground. “No…you find him. You are smart, Murdoch. You not limited like police. You have no rules. I give you any help, any money—no matter. I get you what you want. I want man who did this. You find him.”

  “And when I find him?”

  “Better you don’t know.”

  I nodded. “Okay, Pete. I’ll do what I can. When the cops are done, I want the forensics report. And I don’t want the cops to know I’m involved.”

  His face began to crumple again and he pointed helplessly at Eva, at the gaping hole in her belly. “What is this, Murdoch? Why? Why he did this to my baby…?” His voice was weird, twisted with pain.

  They led him away through the woodlands into the darkness beneath the trees, and I made my way back through the paling, gray light and the drizzle, toward my car, thinking that most times, what really hurts is not understanding why. Pain never hurts so much as when it’s meaningless.

  I got deep like that sometimes.

  * * * *

  Maria was still in bed when I got back. I opened the door and looked in the room. The curtains were closed but the window was open and a cool, damp breeze made the drapes waft softly and brought in the splash and splatter of the rain. I stepped over and sat on the edge of the bed. Her hair was rumpled. Her face was pale with sleep and I could just make out the few freckles on her cheeks and nose. I stroked away a strand of hair from her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes. They were sleepy, but she smiled. I glanced at the clock. It was seven a.m. She stretched with her arms above her head and I had a sudden impulse to hold her and feel her body, small and supple, against mine.

  She said, “Where were you?”

  “Pete called. Four a.m. He had a problem.”

  “Pete? Russian Pete?”

  I nodded.

  She frowned. “Didn’t you say you weren’t going to do jobs for him anymore?”

  I bent and touched her lips with mine. She held my face with her small hands and the gentle peck grew into a long, lingering kiss. I felt the heat stirring inside me. She pulled away just enough to rub the end of my nose in an Eskimo kiss.

  Her eyes were huge and dark. “Don’t change the subject, big guy. Didn’t you?”

  I gave her my best lopsided smile and said, “It’s not that easy, Maria.”

  She held my gaze for a long moment, smiling. Her eyes were warm, lids half closed. She whispered, “You want to make love?”

  My belly was on fire and I could feel my heart pounding. I said, “You know I do.”

  She patted my cheek with her hand. “Well, this is how easy it is, Liam. No. See? Easy.” She pushed me back and swung her legs out of the bed. “I’m going to have a shower. You want to put the coffee on?”

  I went to make coffee. And, in just a few minutes, she came into the kitchen barefoot with wet hair, wearing a purple Japanese kimono with a golden dragon on it. She sat at the pine table and I poured her coffee. Black, no sugar, the way I took it.

  “Pete is a very bad man, but he’s been a good friend to me.”

  She was buttering toast but glanced up then back down and kept on buttering. I
sighed. I meant what I was saying, but I couldn’t find a way for it not to sound lame.

  “I can’t walk away from my whole life overnight, Maria. It’s going to take time.”

  She bit into her toast and chewed, watching me. “How much time?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You made me a promise, Liam. You going back on your promise?”

  “No.”

  “So?”

  I looked down into my coffee. It was real black. “His daughter was murdered last night. She was twenty-three. Eva. A nice kid.”

  She put down her toast. Careful, like it might have consequences if she set it down the wrong way. “I’m sorry.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. He’d taken care not to involve her in his life. She was a good student, just finishing a psychology degree at UCL. Like I said, a nice kid. Closest thing I ever had to a niece.”

  She was silent a while, staring at her plate. “Was it gang related?”

  “No…” I rubbed my face with my hands. “I can’t make much sense of it. It looked…” I shrugged, staring at the table but seeing Eva lying in the mud with her dead eyes staring at the trees above her, raindrops sitting on her pupils. “It looked ritualistic. He swears nobody is trying to move in on him. Nobody would be that crazy. He’s too powerful and too dangerous. Even the cops stay clear. It doesn’t make any sense. Unless…”

  She was watching me carefully. She said, “Unless?”

  “Unless whoever killed her didn’t know she was Russian Pete’s daughter.”

  She sat back in her chair. “But, then what would the motive be?”

  I drained my coffee and pulled a Camel from the pack. I tapped it three times on my Zippo and finally said, “No motive.”

  “You’re talking about—”

  “A serial killer.”

  “That would account for the ritualistic elements.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Liam?”

  I searched her eyes. I knew what she was going to say. “What does Pete want from you? Why did he call you this morning at four a.m.?”