Snakes & Ladders
Sean Slater
is the pseudonym for Vancouver Police Officer Sean Sommerville. Sommerville works in Canada’s poorest slum, the Downtown East Side – an area rife with poverty, mental illness, drug use, prostitution, and gang warfare. He has investigated everything from frauds and extortions to homicides. Sommerville has written numerous columns and editorials for the city newspaper. His work has been nominated for the Rupert Hughes Prose Award, and he was the grand-prize winner of the Sunday Serial Thriller contest. His debut novel,
The Survivor
, was published to rave reviews.
Snakes & Ladders
is his second novel.
Praise for
The Survivor
‘A satisfyingly authentic debut from a man who really does know about the bleak side of the human psyche . . . written with an unexpected gentle irony, and featuring a lead character that the author clearly likes, it’s a neat, stylish thriller from a writer to watch’
Daily Mail
‘The USP of this energetic debut thriller is that it’s written about a Vancouver cop by a Vancouver cop . . . In fact Sean Slater writes the sort of pacy superior pulp you’d expect from an author who’d never eaten a doughnut on a dull stakeout’
Daily Telegraph
‘Fast-paced, gripping and impossible to put down, Sean Slater’s debut novel is an explosive, action-injected tale told by a great new talent. A fantastic read’
CHRIS CARTER, author of
The Night Stalker
‘
The Survivor
grabbed me by the throat from page one and held on until the very end. Slater’s debut is a rocket-paced evocative thriller. Gritty, dark and graphic,
The Survivor
is at times hard to read but always harder to put down. A terrific read’
DANIEL KALLA, bestselling author of
Pandemic
,
Blood Lies
and
Of Flesh and Blood
Also by Sean Slater
The Survivor
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2012
A CBS Company
Copyright © Sean Slater, 2012
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Sean Slater to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-85720-040-2
eBook ISBN 978-0-85720-041-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Acknowledgements
In
The Survivor
, I thanked everyone in the world who has ever
supported me in my writing career. In
Snakes & Ladders
, I am
being more specific. This book would not be what it is without
the help of my usual advisers:
- Joe Cummings, my plot & character mercenary
- Kirk Longstaffe, my idea bouncer and information safeguard
- And my dear wife Lani, who not only acts as my first reader and editor, but who endlessly takes care of our home so I can actually have a few hours here and there to write these novels.
Professionally, I have to thank everyone at Simon & Schuster UK, especially:
- Libby Yevtushenko for being such a wonderful editor
- Clare Hey for her tiresome diligence in ironing out the wrinkles
- Suzanne Baboneau for giving me the opportunity to break into the writing world
- And everyone else there who has worked so hard with regards to typesetting, proofing, cover art, publicity and so on.
I would also like to thank everyone at the Darley Anderson Agency for their constant work behind the scenes:
- Rosanna Bellingham
- Madeleine Buston
- Mary Darby
- And, of course, Clare Wallace.
It is always an unexpected delight to receive an email from
any one of you.
Last, and certainly not least, I have to thank my fantastic agent, Camilla, who acts as an editor, agent, negotiator, adviser, friend and counsellor – heck, this woman wears so many hats, she needs a walk-in closet at the office. Life in the writing world would not be as exciting or enjoyable without her. She has been a godsend, pure and simple.
For anyone I might have missed, apologies all round.
Sean
This book is dedicated to three amazing men:
To Gramps, for always being there for me.
To Dad, for finally finding your way and coming through at the end.
And to Larry ‘Big Poppa’ Oakley, who has always been a rock of support for everyone in the family.
Snake Eyes:
Definition:
1)
The lowest possible roll of the dice (two ones) in a game of Craps, or
2)
Extremely
bad luck
Contents
One
The black mask was made entirely from leather. Rectangular slits were cut out over the eyes and mouth areas, and running down the back, interlacing through the eyelets, were a pair of long, thin straps.
The Adder tightened these straps, firming the mask to the back of his head as he stared at the young woman before him. Her name was Mandilla Gill.
Mandy
. And he knew her well.
She was pretty and young – nineteen to be exact – and bound to the chair not by any physical restraints but by the medications he had given her. More important than all of that, she was about to be freed from the cold darkness of this world. It was time for her salvation.
The Beautiful Escape.
‘Please,’ she said. Her voice was soft, distant, barely a whisper.
‘Everything is all right,’ he told her. ‘Do not be afraid.’
The girl looked like she wanted to respond, but said nothing back.
The Adder scanned the room. It was dark and cold, and the walls reeked of old, set-in dampness. All across the floor was litter – old newspapers, dirty clothes, garbage of all kinds. The Adder walked across the trash to the other side of the room and stared at the camera he had placed just outside the window.
The angle was perfect. And it had to be.
Satisfied, he turned around and knelt before the girl. Already her breathing had slowed to a critical level and her eyes were taking on a lost, distant look. Even in the pale dimness of this room, the Adder could see that.
There wasn’t much time left.
‘Please,’ she said, and this time her voice was far away from him. So very, very far.
‘Do not be afraid,’ he said again. ‘I’m freeing you.’
The Adder smiled at her. He held her head in both hands. Stared deep into her eyes. And made sure that she saw he was there for her.
‘Fly away, Little Bird,’ he told her. ‘Fly away.’
And Mandy Gill did.
She was
soaring
.
Snake Eyes
.
Mandy Gill’s life crapped out on a cold and grey winter day. The dice of life were loaded against her. They always had been, ever since the day she’d been born. She died isolated, in a sad and lonely place. And the worst part about her death was that it could have been prevented.
If anyone had cared.
The thought of this filtered through Jacob Striker’s mind as the homicide detective pulled his cruiser up to the old hotel. The place was a shithole. Old boards covered the broken windows; gang graffiti painted the walls, and crabgrass mixed with dirt made for a front lawn. This was the Lucky Lodge Rooming House, and anyone who lived here wasn’t so lucky.
Mandy Gill was the perfect example of this. Her last trip out of here would be under the stiff white plastic of a coroner’s body bag – an undignified end to an unfair life.
Game over. You lose.
Striker’s fingers clenched into fists as he climbed out of the unmarked patrol car. He hated this place. Always had. This entire area, too. It was Strathcona, a one-way ticket to nowhere for the mentally ill and drug-addicted. Too many checked in, so few checked out.
Such was life at the Lucky Lodge Rooming House.
Over the years, during his stints in Patrol and Homicide, Striker had been here too many times to count. Overdoses. Suicides. Forcible Confinements and Murders. All bad, no good. But being here today was especially terrible.
For personal reasons.
Striker killed the thought and walked down the cracked-cement walkway, which was covered in rotting leaves and half hidden in the four o’clock dimness. The cold January air was crisp with the hint of coming snow, and blowing in angry gusts. It ruffled his hair and stung his skin.
