NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5)

Copyright © Adrian Magson 2013

The right of Adrian Magson to be
identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 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 author.

All characters in this work are
fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely
coincidental. This ebook is licenced for your personal enjoyment only and
should not be sold, given or loaned to any other person.

This title was previously published
in paperback - ISBN: 978-0-9557078-1-0 – by Creme de la Crime Ltd (now part of
Severn House Publishers)

Adrian Magson
is the author of 13 spy and crime thrillers, a YA
ghost novel and a writer’s help book. A regular reviewer for
Shots
Magazine, he writes the ‘
Beginners’
column for
Writing Magazine
(UK), and profiles of debut authors.

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

Other books
by Adrian Magson

Praise for
Adrian’s books:

The
woman arrived in a black VW Golf GTi. Her approach was watched by a man on the
deserted fourth floor of an anonymous office building just off London’s Euston
Road. As the vehicle turned into the car park below, he took out a mobile and
pressed a button. He allowed it to ring once before cutting the connection.

The
woman who stepped out of the car was tall, with blonde hair, neatly cut. Smart
suit, dark court shoes. Professional. A flash of white slip peeped from beneath
the hem of her skirt as she reached in for something on the passenger seat.
When she ducked back out, she was holding a burgundy leather briefcase with a
shoulder strap and gold buckles. She turned to look up at the office building,
hand raised to shield her eyes against the setting sun, but the man knew she
wouldn’t be able to see him from down there.

A movement
behind him showed in the reflection from the window.

‘She’s here.’
He spoke in careful English, trying to flatten his tongue and get the words out
of the base of his mouth where he felt his origins always betrayed him. ‘Are we
still secure?’ His words were lost across the vast, empty floor space.

‘Yes, Boss.
Nobody will bother us.’

‘Good. Take her
to the basement. Make sure you get her briefcase.’

The other
nodded and moved away. Moments later, a brief snatch of conversation echoed
along the corridor, then faded. Elsewhere, silence returned as the building
emptied for the day.

The man, who
used the name Grigori, walked over to a desk, the only item of furniture in
sight. On it was a cardboard folder, a touch telephone and a plastic in-tray.
The last two were covered in dust. The folder contained everything he had
needed to know about the woman: name, age, background, friends, past jobs, past
loves.

Past
everything.

He fed the
folder into the mouth of a portable shredder on the floor beside the desk, and
watched as the cardboard and its contents became strips of spaghetti. As of
that moment, its subject ceased to be of interest to him.

Or, more
importantly, a threat.

He reached into
an inside jacket pocket and took out a sheet of paper and a photograph. The
paper was a brief biography, the subject of which was - like the woman
downstairs - a freelance reporter. She also had no ties, no close family and no
obvious corporate loyalties. Another loner.

He preferred
loners. They were uncomplicated.

He studied the
photo; it might almost have been the same woman. Not as thin, perhaps, but the
same blonde hair and pale skin. The same look of self-reliance.

He returned to
the window as the driver of the Golf mounted the steps to the front entrance.
Graceful, he thought idly. Elegant, even.

But a dead
woman.

She just didn’t
know it yet.

*********

‘You’ll have to
leave your car down here.’ The constable was a hunched shape looming out of the
darkness. Up close, he looked cold, wet and miserable, and sounded in no mood
to argue. His gesture indicated which way she should go, a lane behind him,
disappearing into the dark. Further on was a distant glow of arc lights,
vehicles and movement, the area around it lost in the vastness of the Essex
countryside, thirty miles from London. Radios crackled unseen, the voices
snatched by the wind and lost in the night air.

It was starting
to rain again.

Riley Gavin
climbed out of her car and locked the door. She walked away without waiting. If
he wanted it moved, he could come and get her.

She wished
she’d put on a thicker coat and more suitable shoes. But the officious phone
call that had dragged her from bed at three in the morning had omitted to warn
her about the prevailing conditions, nor given any details of why she was
needed. It had simply urged her to come, and given her careful directions on
how to get there. The lack of information had left her with a feeling of dread,
overshadowing any thoughts she might have had brought on by her instincts as a
freelance reporter.

She trudged up
the lane towards the lights, skirting the potholes and ruts she could see,
fingers mentally crossed against the ones she couldn’t. It had been raining on
and off for three days now, a persistent autumn deluge, and the topsoil was
spongy and heavy, incapable of absorbing any more water.

Two men
splashed past going the other way, carrying metal cases and muttering about the
weather. Both were shrouded from head to toe in white protective suits. Another
figure followed, this one in a uniform and peaked cap, dancing across the
uneven surface in the wobbling wake of a torch. He was unravelling a roll of
scene-of-crime tape as he went, replacing a strip fluttering brokenly amid the
bushes bordering the track. He ignored Riley, too intent on his task and
keeping his footing on the treacherous surface.

‘Who the hell
are you?’ A voice challenged her and she looked up to see another uniform
approaching. A torch beam hit her square on, the glare painful on the eyes.

She put up a
protective hand just as another voice called out from over by the lights, ‘It’s
all right. Miss Gavin? Over here.’

Riley stepped
round the constable and decided they must have called out the awkward squad. Or
maybe it was the weather making them all tetchy. She found herself alongside a
tall figure in a yellow slicker and black rubber boots. He held out an arm to
prevent her going too close, and kept himself between her and the focus of
lights on a fold in the ground.

‘Sorry about
this,’ he said, and introduced himself. ‘DI Craig Pell. We need you to make an
identification.’  She recognised his voice from the phone. The spread of light
gave her an impression of high cheekbones, a confident chin, and a lick of hair
plastered across his forehead. His eyes were pools of shadow

Riley’s stomach
lurched at the idea. When he had called, other than giving his rank, name and
directions, he had rung off without elaborating. Now she had an instant
foreboding.

Pell checked
that her hands were empty, then handed her a white coverall suit. It was the
same garment worn by SOCOs – Scene of Crime Officers - to preserve the
integrity of the scene. He helped her into it, awkward when she stumbled
against him and he had to grab at her shoulder to stop her falling. He mumbled
an apology and snatched his hands away as if he’d been stung.

Riley wondered
if he was always so clumsy.

Once she was
zipped up, he handed her some overshoes, then turned and called out to a figure
hunched in the hollow. There was an answering grunt and Pell took Riley’s arm
and led her forward.

The scene was
nightmarish. They were standing on the edge of a wide, shallow ditch bordered
by a tangle of coarse bushes. A canopy had been erected to cover the immediate
area, and the ghostly glow of lights gave the canvas the appearance of a large
lampshade. The man below was hunched over something on the ground, but Riley
couldn’t see what it was.

‘Tread between
the tapes,’ Pell instructed her. ‘Stop when he tells you. Don’t touch anything
you see and don’t take anything out of your pockets.’

Riley stepped
down carefully, feeling the ground soft and slick beneath her feet. She came to
a stop when the hunched figure raised a hand. He was muttering to himself, and
when he stopped and turned his head, she saw he’d been talking into a small
voice recorder. He clicked it off and beckoned her closer, moving crab-like to
one side and indicating where she should stand.

**********

Riley had seen dead
bodies before. It was never pleasant, whether death had come by natural or
other causes. Each time, she had to steel herself to remain detached. It was
never easy, but in the main, she reckoned on being able to hold it together
long enough to not make a fool of herself.

She had a sense
that this one might be different.

The forensics
officer was watching her, eyes in dark pockets of shadow cast by the arc
lights. He wore a white suit and over-shoes, like the others, but exuded a
different kind of aura; heavier, somehow, as if weighed down by authority or
responsibility. He didn’t seem very pleased to see her.

‘Take it
slowly,’ he said flatly. He glanced past her at Pell and lifted his eyebrows
momentarily before adding, ‘Do you recognise her?’

The woman was
lying huddled in the bottom of the ditch, her legs bent and her feet together,
shoulders slightly hunched. She could have been asleep or even posing coyly,
except that her hands had been taped together at the wrists, the material
cutting deep into the skin. Her face was pale and beaded with moisture, wet
strands of blonde hair plastered against her skull. Bruising showed on her
cheeks and down one side of her throat, and one ear lobe was ripped, a faint
staining of red showing where an earring had been torn away.

Riley guessed
the woman was not much older than herself, maybe in her mid-thirties, although
it was impossible to be certain. She wore a plain, dark jacket and skirt, with
the hem turned up on one slim thigh to reveal a flash of white silk. Her shoes
had once been shiny, but like her lower legs, were now smeared with mud. Her
fingers were bare, although the glint of a watch showed on her wrist. Her hands
looked well cared-for, the nails varnished with a blush of pink, and were
splayed out as if somehow wanting to be distanced from what had happened to her
body.